Song of the Cicadas

Paperback (Print)
Used and New from Other Sellers
Used and New from Other Sellers
from $1.99
Usually ships in 1-2 business days
(Save 88%)
Other sellers (Paperback)
  • All (9) from $1.99   
  • New (3) from $26.57   
  • Used (6) from $1.99   
Close
Sort by
Page 1 of 1
Showing All
Note: Marketplace items are not eligible for any BN.com coupons and promotions
$26.57
Stork Group
Seller since 2011

Feedback rating:

(569)

Condition:

New — never opened or used in original packaging.

Like New — packaging may have been opened. A "Like New" item is suitable to give as a gift.

Very Good — may have minor signs of wear on packaging but item works perfectly and has no damage.

Good — item is in good condition but packaging may have signs of shelf wear/aging or torn packaging. All specific defects should be noted in the Comments section associated with each item.

Acceptable — item is in working order but may show signs of wear such as scratches or torn packaging. All specific defects should be noted in the Comments section associated with each item.

Used — An item that has been opened and may show signs of wear. All specific defects should be noted in the Comments section associated with each item.

Refurbished — A used item that has been renewed or updated and verified to be in proper working condition. Not necessarily completed by the original manufacturer.

New
Brand new and unread! Join our growing list of satisfied customers!

Ships from: Phoenix, MD

Usually ships in 1-2 business days

  • •Standard, 48 States
  • •Standard (AK, HI)
$26.58
indoo
Seller since 2007

Feedback rating:

(22540)

Condition: New
BRAND NEW

Ships from: Avenel, NJ

Usually ships in 1-2 business days

  • •Canadian
  • •International
  • •Standard, 48 States
  • •Standard (AK, HI)
$26.69
Extremely_Reliable
Seller since 2007

Feedback rating:

(8175)

Condition: New
Buy with confidence. Excellent Customer Service & Return policy.

Ships from: Richmond, TX

Usually ships in 1-2 business days

  • •Canadian
  • •International
  • •Standard, 48 States
  • •Standard (AK, HI)
Page 1 of 1
Showing All
Close
Sort by

More About This Textbook

Overview

In this striking first collection of poems, the grainy strangeness of the modern world is transformed into a place at once knowable and enduring. Mông-Lan conveys the certainty that even when the world stops making sense, decency and beauty somehow survive. From Saigon to San Francisco, she combines the earthly and the ecstatic, the animal and the sublime, to create lyrics that tempt and haunt.

"Welcome to a poetic voice that represents no less than a manifestation of soul. In Mông-Lan's debut book, she has taken on the daunting responsibility of representing the Vietnamese nation and culture, via imagery, consciousness, and memory. Hers is a stunning experiment and a historical imperative."-Jane Miller

"In Asian tradition, poetry and visual art go hand in hand, with the collaboration of work, image, and calligraphy. Mông-Lan's first book renews this tradition for American poetry, and with a startling subject matter. Her poems and drawings dealing with Viet Nam reflect the awe, the anger, and the mourning of the expatriate who returns to the country of her birth. Brilliantly exact observation of people and places here is paradoxical evidence that this land is no longer entirely her own. We sense that she also values what she brings from her adoptive culture-a new language, a new aesthetic, and the conviction that a woman artist has special insights to offer on the subject of armed conflict and its aftermath. From visual beauty, human suffering, and verbal inventiveness, Mông-Lan stakes out a poetic territory that is completely her own."-Alfred Corn

"Mông-Lan is a remarkably accomplished poet. Always her poems are deft, extremely graceful in the way words move, and in the cadence that carries them. One is moved by the articulate character of 'things seen,' the subtle shifting of images, and the quiet intensity of their information. Clearly she is a master of the art."-Robert Creeley
Read More Show Less

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
"Tide pools wait/ for the stone-eating sea," "children play mindlessly in satellite/ shores," a Vietnamese "dialect is a giddy/ fish" and "monkeys howl the illogical twilight" in M ng-Lan's intriguing sequences about places in Southeast Asia and North America. M ng-Lan takes her geographic imagination far beyond the space of a single ethnic heritage: scenes and sketches of Southeast Asia complement similarly structured poems about Mexico, whose tropics provide vivid, organic-seeming symbols. The Asian sequences concentrate instead on people "villagers commuting from the countryside," Saigon citizens, kids, a new mother and the whole strange (to American eyes) constellation of "A New Vi t Nam." M ng-Lan, whose family came to America from Vietnam in the '70s and who is now a Stegner fellow at Stanford University, explores all the above subjects and, crucially, her speaker's reactions to them in juxtaposed fragments, speculations and phrases arrayed on the field of each page in a manner that suggests the influence of Charles Olson and Adrienne Rich. Though the poems can have the too-even keel of reportage, they also ascend to heights of electric oddity: one poem finds new things to say about "The Golden Gate Bridge," where "the wind's mood and resolutions/ erase tendrils/ that grow/ from the sea (to engrave around it/ have that as a dish/ you could eat)." Readers who seek elaborate structures or an unerring musical ear may be may be disappointed in these impressionistic, accretive works. Those who seek ethnography, good travel writing, vivid phrases or durable images, on the other hand, will find much of this debut a worthwhile trip. (June) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Read More Show Less

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9781558493070
  • Publisher: University of Massachusetts Press
  • Publication date: 5/28/2001
  • Pages: 82
  • Product dimensions: 6.08 (w) x 10.98 (h) x 0.25 (d)

Read an Excerpt




Chapter One


Grotto
Vinh Ha Long (Bay of the Landing Dragon), Tonkin Gulf


1


                   The rower gaunt as his oar
           lets us out conscious
                           of not getting his 5,000 dông
he stands ankles in cool water
                     holding onto the state-owned boat
             for support his skin the same color
     as the mud my eyes follow
                  the morning tides ebbing
     from the dock
                 (flash of residue
           undulating) turquoise solid
               as the mountains mold has blackened
                     the boat'sbelly
         lapping at it
                    clear water runs over sky


        grotto of swimming bats I do not swallow
the darkness rocks under my feet
                        are piranhas' mouths if I miss a step
stalagmite meeting stalactites coincidences
           taking forever to form


2


                      the eclipse's purple cast
            throws everyone
                              off balance
          inside she clutches onto the image
               of her lover in case she falls
                                her body a black and white lily
                                       against the gorge
          of sky this morning she ate nothing
                               but a banana to quell
                          her upset stomach
a well drips its musical water
                                  in the back rock kings play chess
                   a centuries-old tournament
                 neither wins


        dusky unbirth of pre-memory
                 she forgets to bring a flashlight
to disarm the rocks stalagmites
                a line of prayer to hook
                                        her thoughts


3


bats swallow my shadow
              when the ocean swallows us
    from these pages what will the sky speak
            of the bat grottos?
                 twenty years the ugliness
      forgotten
back to port: bone sky
      mist bleeds over the mountain ridges
                      over water barges snailing


racket of diesel motors
        a huge stone head
                    imagining us
two rocks two cocks fighting
              a vigilant rock dog stares in silence


my hand on the horizon
                of its tail the scaly sieve


The Long Bíên Bridge


1


              Seeing the Long Biên Bridge
   on a pastel
              map of Hà Nôi its image
      one-dimensional and slumberous an undug
                          grave
              I would never have guessed
    it for what it really is: a patchwork of engravings
love-entwined names (skin of words
           the unstripping instants of flesh)
  graffiti mostly "Cam Dái!" (No Urinating!)
                         altered
from bombings shell-shocked doctored countless times


was it the architect Eiffel
                     who drew this bridge into reality?
           its black strokes hanging over the sky
  like a leg of the Eiffel Tower
                   placed across two shores


2


          the Red River
stripping silt shale
                        over crimson shores fluxes
  urgent snail-patient penitent


                          the rains
bloat it white and phantasmic
                                        at its banks
          she launders the family clothes
     next to where the buffalo shits
                                       where her children
shit rings around her swollen ankles


          children play mindlessly in satellite
shores loaded with strange
          luster
                  that body of dazzling light


3


she's learned how to talk back
                            without talking
she's learned how to defend herself
            in her small way


                        her older sister
          who refuses to marry him
sits near the bridge amassing
                        vegetables for sale
           mounds of mint
                 hills of water spinach
guavas bananas "the poor man's fruit"
        swords of sugarcane
flopping scales like huge tongues
              ready to weigh


       discreet as pickpockets
                            peril waits
between rusty spokes
               underneath
        spinning bike tires but


motion saves the day


4


                   not having to think
            of motion
the villagers commuting from the countryside
                 to the city pedal
                                no thought but to force the legs the foot
                          the hands from swerving
                 head straight
not really looking at anything but the whole


in sync
       they know not to hold their breaths


       the wind moves through you in conditional
tense of spokes tattered clothes
                 conical straw hats


     friction of atmospheres
          flapping clothes hinting the body's
                   bony outline
hair that knows itself through wind


5


acidic arcs
          urine stains tumbling rain
the bridge shudders from the history
it knows


peasant-fighters rumbling feet bodies
       dragged over its steel ribs
                     throaty cries like rusty parts
toe caught tire thong lost


still the urgency the pedaling


6


        rustic bodies
with the weight of the day's work
               splayed over trailing shadows


       bodies illuminated like insomniac
thought
       pealing from one outline to another
                the endless chase


                 encaged chickens
         whiz by chickenfeathers
strip the sky of wait
                      and water water


                 you know not to hold your breath
          wind-intoxicated
waiting for it
         the minute it comes you want
                                    to escape


Lake


1


                     not in cramped houses
                                   with censorious walls
       but in anonymous air
                the lake's mist shields
                                     them from comment
  one gesture kindling
                   another that's how I espy
                them the lovers
hand sparked on the hip
             serpentine hair
                          draped along the body


           no matter that the rats scuttle
                                 like shuttlecocks
    around the lake's lips drinking
                            in the lovers' discourse
their embrace makes sure
        the world doesn't exist
                subject of noise
  the winter day's pantomime


2


moving in two worlds
                       the tortoises the swallows
                                             their minds
              the elderly practice Tai Chi
                              at 6 in the morning
      around the lake
          one gesture flows into another
                                     arms to wind
                 heel to ground
                   sure the world does exist
                                the matter of their bodies
                                       not their mist


      shrugging sleep off morning's shoulders
                                  the tofu lady sings
the morning is a burning
                      kettle of thuc bac Chinese herbs
            my aunt's roosters croon the battlewire cage
                        their kept secrets
                                wanting death is wanting nothing


3


raging under pho
            the kerosene fire
        a cigarette fizzing a female hand
the insouciant days quiet burning like writing
             clash of shadows
                                      feet adrift


4


                               rats leap
                                          for food-scraps around the lake
                     the northeasterly wind casts its spells
         ashes of money burnt at an offering
                                                           purling incense
                               faraway the shade of dried squid
burning children have their butts up in gutters
                                   the fierce motorcycled streets
               at the juncture
                         where matter dreams
              & pantomimes begin to speak
                           you gather from its incandescence
                      your world


Ravine


as they come
                    through the endless branchings of rooms
       after bronze Chinese coins are cast
               strange heat of silences
                             you stand doused in sleep


    the back of your neck
                  is a bird's shadow ascending
      your spine a line
          a ravine where things are lost:
       marbles the sound of a cello
   faded photos brittle letters
       I lace your body with my hands
                      your legs loaves of bread
               your feet slippery fish
           broken fins
swimming through uncharted waters


                     under your right shoulder blade
I find something shiny black
                          a new revolver


as they come for you
           I wipe sleep off your shoulders
   put the gun in your hands
        tell you to aim
you point
             to your head


Field


Crows land like horses' neighs
        rush of rocks


how many buffalo
    does it take to plow a disaster?
              how many women to clean
         up the mess?


     shoots of incense
                    hotly in her hands
she bows toward the tombstones
          face of her son
   how many revolutions for us to realize?


             her windless gray hair
becomes her she knows this
                          there is no reason
     to dye what she's earned


        rain quiet as wings
on her back


A New Víêt Nam


1


                   sweat of bolts & nails
muscle like steel & metal
architects work at a ripping pitch
                               pounding out a new capitol
                       around the lakes
          morning to evening the ground explodes
                          liquid concrete
mercury ambling down streets
you think you are the noise
men pick at French-laid concrete like crows
         shovels and picks at shoulders
they stand knees in earth
pain trots down the street


how life would've been more than noise
how events should've happened


2


Hue — what do you make of chance
                   life's but a dollar a day


                 what should you say when a person
dies each day in the Demilitarized Zone scrounging for scrap metal
shrapnel unexploded
                        bullets & bombs on trays like shrimp
        before tourists?


the hills now there now disappearing
           white claws stream down from dumped chemicals
                                             a fun house of horror


still after decades the Khe Sanh Combat Base
              is nearly flat; the Ho Chí Minh trail winds
thirty minutes to Laos & National Highway 1 threading
                    the country in one


is it chance that the Hue dialect is a giddy
                                               fish never to be hooked?
the language is imagined by the land's vapors
                 fluctuating hills
                               the mirage of white sand
by dreams of the brood
                 of cows walking through white mountains


a woman fries her smoky meal
                        next to a moon crater


3


     honey-moon light swoops over the valleys
                                            upon the Dà Lat mountains
                                  like squadrons
a man buys two bunches of bananas in half a second


      I linger & face the remark
                          of the vendor "chúi nào cung nhu vay ht
                    cô hiên quá di vào buôn bán di"
("the bananas are all the same you're too naive go into business")


I pass the Nuclear Research Center
                              prop from an old movie
             on a deserted mountain


  toward the Domaine de Marie Convent a pink
church "once house to 300 nuns" someone waves


then past the cemetery a mountain of crosses
                                           which doesn't stop rising

DHARMA PATHS

By Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche
Translated by Ngödup Burkhar and Chöjor Radha
Edited by Laura M. Roth

Snow Lion Publications

Copyright © 1992 Karma Kagyu Institute (c/o Karma Triyana Dharmachakra). All rights reserved.

Read More Show Less

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix
1
Grotto 3
The Long Biên Bridge 6
Lake 12
Ravine 15
Field 16
A New Viêt Nam 17
2
Sand, Flies & Fish 23
3
Trajectory 35
The Golden Gate Bridge 38
Silence of Form 44
the taste 52
Song of the Cicadas 53
Hunger 60
Twilight 61
Things Human 63
4
Sounding Sat Déc 69
Train 72
Letters 74
Gravity 75
Read More Show Less

Customer Reviews

Be the first to write a review
( 0 )
Rating Distribution

5 Star

(0)

4 Star

(0)

3 Star

(0)

2 Star

(0)

1 Star

(0)

Your Rating:

Review Guidelines
Add Recommendations
Your Name: Create a Pen Name or

Barnes & Noble.com Review Rules

Our reader reviews allow you to share your comments on titles you liked, or didn't, with others. By submitting an online review, you are representing to Barnes & Noble.com that all information contained in your review is original and accurate in all respects, and that the submission of such content by you and the posting of such content by Barnes & Noble.com does not and will not violate the rights of any third party. Please follow the rules below to help ensure that your review can be posted.

Reviews by Our Customers Under the Age of 13

We highly value and respect everyone's opinion concerning the titles we offer. However, we cannot allow persons under the age of 13 to have accounts at BN.com or to post customer reviews. Please see our Terms of Use for more details.

What to exclude from your review:

Please do not write about reviews, commentary, or information posted on the product page. If you see any errors in the information on the product page, please send us an email.

Reviews should not contain any of the following:

  • - HTML tags, profanity, obscenities, vulgarities, or comments that defame anyone
  • - Time-sensitive information such as tour dates, signings, lectures, etc.
  • - Single-word reviews. Other people will read your review to discover why you liked or didn't like the title. Be descriptive.
  • - Comments focusing on the author or that may ruin the ending for others
  • - Phone numbers, addresses, URLs
  • - Pricing and availability information or alternative ordering information
  • - Advertisements or commercial solicitation

Reminder:

  • - By submitting a review, you grant to Barnes & Noble.com and its sublicensees the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable right and license to use the review in accordance with the Barnes & Noble.com Terms of Use.
  • - Barnes & Noble.com reserves the right not to post any review -- particularly those that do not follow the terms and conditions of these Rules. Barnes & Noble.com also reserves the right to remove any review at any time without notice.
  • - See Terms of Use for other conditions and disclaimers.
Search for Products You'd Like to Recommend

Recommend other products that relate to your review. Just search for them below and share!

Create a Pen Name

Your Pen Name is your unique identity on BN.com. It will appear on the reviews you write and other website activities. Your Pen Name cannot be edited, changed or deleted once submitted.

 
Your Pen Name can be any combination of alphanumeric characters (plus - and _), and must be at least two characters long.

Continue Anonymously
Sort by: Showing 1 Customer Reviews

  • Anonymous

    Posted October 22, 2007

    Shes really cool

    Mong-Lan came to my school.'LEMS' And she was really nice. She read us poems and tought us about Veitnom.'Thats were she was born' I loved her book 'Love Poems about Tofo and other Poems' It was kinda weird because she was talking about food the way you would talk to a person you love but it was still cool. Fun Fact. Her name ' Mong-Lan means Dreaming Orchids' ISN'T THAT SO PRETTY!

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.
Sort by: Showing 1 Customer Reviews
If you find inappropriate content, please report it to Barnes & Noble
Why is this product inappropriate?
Comments (optional)