News at Eleven: One also thinks of a Chinese wisdom

writer as great as Zhuangzi. Xi Chuan has a similarly playful and puzzling mind, embracing the bafflement and ambiguity of the world. Zhuangzi himself makes an appearance in these poems, as do other luminaries of Chinese literature, philosophy, and history: the "grand historian" Sima Qian, the satirical poet Sima Xiangru, the poets of the Tang Dynasty, and even Confucius. These presences are as much a part of Xi Chuan's landscape as Beijing's streets, the South Xinjiang mountains, or the huge Chinese plains. From a poem called "Plains":

from Bookslut: Notes on Xi Chuan's Notes on the Mosquito: Selected Poems

~~~~~~~~~~~