City of Eternal Spring

by Afaa Michael Weaver

Overview

Winner of the 2015 Phillis Wheatley Book Award (poetry category)
This is the final book in the Plum Flower Trilogy by Afaa Michael Weaver, published by the University of Pittsburgh Press. The two earlier books, The Plum Flower Dance: Poems 1985 to 2005 and The Government of Nature, reveal similar themes that address the author's personal experience with childhood abuse through the context of Daoist renderings of nature as a metaphor for the human body, with an eye to recovery and forgiveness in a very eclectic spiritual life. City of Eternal Spring chronicles Weaver's travels abroad in Taiwan and China, as well as showing the limits of cultural influence.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780822963257
Publisher:	University of Pittsburgh Press
Publication date:	09/17/2014
Series:	Pitt Poetry Series
Edition description:	1
Pages:	96
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.30(d)

About the Author

Afaa Michael Weaver is the author of numerous poetry collections, including Timber and Prayer: The Indian Pond Poems; My Father’s Geography; The Plum Flower Dance: Poems 1985 to 2005; The Government of Nature, winner of the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award ; and City of Eternal Spring, winner of the Phyllis Wheatley Book Award. He is alumnae professor of English at Simmons College in Boston. Weaver is the recipient of an NEA fellowship, a Pew fellowship, four Pushcart Prizes, and a Fulbright scholar appointment, among other honors. In 1998, he became the first Elder of the Cave Canem Foundation.

Table of Contents

I Map of the Heart

What the Lotus Said 3

Where We Are Born 4

The Earthquakes in Taiwan 5

A Chinese Theory of Strings 7

In Shi Lin Night Market with My Lover 8

At Drunken Moon Lake 9

City of Eternal Spring 10

II Exile

The Old Man 13

Noodles in Gong Guan with Godfather 14

Crushing Peanuts in a Hakka Village 15

Tea Plantations and Women in Black 16

Meeting Old Friends at Drunken Moon Lake 17

The Long Walk Up to Mao Zedong's Retreat 18

Buying a History of the Language 19

The Fish We Ate 20

On Hearing that Michael Jackson Died 21

MRT 22

Da Mo Meets Ronald McDonald 24

The Three Black Goats of Mei Nung 25

On Visiting Yu Jian 26

In Shenyang City 28

Eating Vegetarian in Taichung with Chien Cheng Chen 29

III Memories

Oya at He Nan Temple 33

Archaeology of Time: The Past 34

Archaeology of Time: Returning 35

Archaeology of Time: Convertibles 36

Archaeology of Time: Gambling 37

Archaeology of Time: Stations 39

Archaeology of Time: Shadows 41

Archaeology of Time: Waste 42

Recognition 43

IV Intimacies

A First Love Poem 47

Night Walk in Taipei 48

The Abacus Speaks to the End of Geometry 49

Cold Mountain and the Maiden 50

Night at the Opera 52

What the Rains Bring 53

A Dream 54

America, a Challenge to Love 55

Nice to Meet You 56

Walking to the Tree of Ancestors 57

V Soul Space

Daoist Festival of the Great Pig 61

Unspoken 62

Flux 63

Mind 64

Kings 65

Mirros 66

Space 67

Truth 68

Nerves 70

De Fu to Li Bai 71

Homesickness 72

The Workers in Beijing 73

Being Chinese 75

Notes 77

Acknowledgment 81

Editorial Reviews

A bold collection. As he embraces spiritualism, Weaver always has two feet firmly planted in the American experience as he has lived it.

Fox Chase Review

In these nuanced, sobering, and beautifully cadenced poems, the poet tries to deal with haunting, mysterious voices of past, present, and future—whether of fear, anxiety, joy, love, or hope. Reconciling East and West, he achieves solacing harmony and tranquility. A marvelous work.

Ching-Hsi Perng

A triumph and a graceful, powerful conclusion to his trilogy.

Coal Hill Review

Weaver is one of the most significant poets writing today. With its blend of Chinese spiritualism and American groundedness, his poetry presents the reader (and the listener, for his body of work is meant to be read aloud) with challenging questions about identity, about how physicality and spirit act together or counteract each other to shape who we are in the world.

Henry Louis Gates for Baltimore Magazine

The Kingsley Tufts Award is one of the most prestigious prizes a poet can win, and I'm delighted to see it go to Afaa. His father was a sharecropper. After serving for two years in the Army, he toiled for fifteen years in factories, writing poems all the while. When he learned that he'd won a National Endowment fellowship, he quit his job and attended Brown University on a full scholarship. He essentially invented himself from whole cloth as a poet. It's truly remarkable.

Chase Twichell

A bold collection. As he embraces spiritualism, Weaver always has two feet firmly planted in the American experience as he has lived it.”
—Fox Chase Review
 


Past praise for Afaa Michael Weaver
“The Kingsley Tufts Award is one of the most prestigious prizes a poet can win, and I'm delighted to see it go to Afaa. His father was a sharecropper. After serving for two years in the Army, he toiled for fifteen years in factories, writing poems all the while. When he learned that he’d won a National Endowment Fellowship, he quit his job and attended Brown University on a full scholarship. He essentially invented himself from whole cloth as a poet. It’s truly remarkable."
—Chase Twichell, chief judge, Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, 2014 presented for The Government of Nature
 


Past praise for Afaa Michael Weaver
“In these nuanced, sobering, and beautifully cadenced poems, the poet tries to deal with haunting, mysterious voices of past, present, and future—whether of fear, anxiety, joy, love, or hope. Reconciling East and West, he achieves solacing harmony and tranquility. A marvelous work.”
—Ching-Hsi Perng, President of Taipei Chinese Club, on The Government of Nature


Past praise for Afaa Michael Weaver
“Weaver is one of the most significant poets writing today. With its blend of Chinese spiritualism and American groundedness, his poetry presents the reader (and the listener, for his body of work is meant to be read aloud) with challenging questions about identity, about how physicality and spirit act together or counteract each other to shape who we are in the world.” 
—Henry Louis Gates for Baltimore Magazine

From the Publisher