Ming Di

Ming Di (c) privat

Ming Di (pseudonym of Mindy Zhang) commutes as editor of the anthology New Cathay – Contemporary Chinese Poetry and the magazine Poetry East West between Beijing and Los Angeles. Deracination, marginalised identity and the splitting of one’s own language are the themes defining her poems, which are notable for their deliberate way of dealing with form and tradition – both Chinese and American. Her poetic language is permeated with references to other writers and texts and contrasts classical Chinese images with themes from Anglo-American literature. Myths, legends and their reinvention play a central role. Her work also engages with Concrete Poetry, the approaches of which she transfers over into Chinese. The ‘pictorialness’ of language and the ‘languageness’ of images are evoked not least by her playing with Chinese ideograms. Ming Di has been a guest at international literary festivals in Europe, Latin America and Asia and has translated many books of poetry into Chinese and English.

Publications (a selection): Days Flown on Footage (Wenhua Publishing, 2008), D Minor Etudes (DJS Books, 2009), Berlin Story (DJS Books, 2009), Chords Breaking (Hainan Press, 2010), Art of Splitting (New World, 2010), Selected Poems of Ming Di (Changjiang Wenyi, 2010), River Merchant’s Wife (Marick Press, 2012), Luna Fracturada (Valparaiso Ediciones, 2014), Book of Seven Lives (Recours Au Poème Éditeurs, 2015)