{"product_id":"sidetracks","title":"Sidetracks","description":"\u003ch1\u003eSidetracks\u003c\/h1\u003eBei Dao\u003cbr\u003ePublisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation\u003cbr\u003eMay 01 2024\u003cbr\u003eEAN: 9780811238441\u003cbr\u003eISBN: 081123844X\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSynopsis: \u003cp\u003e \u003cstrong\u003eA \u003cem\u003eTIME\u003c\/em\u003e MUST-READ BOOK OF 2024\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003cstrong\u003eA 2024 NPR BOOK WE LOVE\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003cstrong\u003eA NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF 2024\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003cstrong\u003eLONGLISTED FOR THE 2025 GRIFFIN POETRY PRIZE\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003cem\u003eSidetracks\u003c\/em\u003e, Bei Dao's first new collection in almost fifteen years, is also the poet's first long poem and his magnum opus--the artistic culmination of a lifetime devoted to the renewal and reinvention of language. \"As a poet, I am always lost,\" Bei Dao once said. Opening with a prologue of heavenly questions and followed by thirty-four cantos, \u003cem\u003eSidetracks\u003c\/em\u003e travels forward and backward along the divergent paths of the poet's wandering life--from his time as a Young Pioneer in Beijing, through the years of exile living in six countries, back to the rural construction site where he worked during the Cultural Revolution, to the \"sunshine tablecloth\" in his kitchen in Davis, California, and his emotional visit home after a thirteen-year separation (\"the mother tongue has deepened my foreignness\"). All the various currents of our times rush into his lifelines, reconfigured through the \"vortex of experience\" and the poet's encounters with friends and strangers, artists and ghosts, as he moves from place to place, unable to return home. As the poet Michael Palmer has noted, \"Bei Dao's work, in its rapid transitions, abrupt juxtapositions, and frequent recurrence to open syntax evokes the un-speakability of the exile's condition. It is a poetry of explosive convergences, of submersions and unfixed boundaries, 'amid languages.'\" \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"27th Letter Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44016045752365,"sku":"16019","price":18.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0673\/3588\/0749\/files\/original_cc525f56-696c-48e1-b4b9-9d007c65d02d.jpg?v=1763787930","url":"https:\/\/27thletterbooks.com\/products\/sidetracks","provider":"27th Letter Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}