Stitching Porcelain: After Matteo Ricci in 16th Century China (New Directions Paperbook)

By Deborah Larsen

Book Overview

Stitching Porcelain, Deborah Larsen's first book of poetry, is a narrative-lyric sequence based on the life of Matteo Ricci, the resourceful Jesuit who entered China in 1583 and stayed for a quarter century. Pondering cultural accommodation as well as faith, many of the poems center on actual events: Ricci's dressing as a Buddhist; his awe-inspiring map (with China shrewdly centered); his prostration before an empty Dragon Throne. Other events the poet imagined. (In the title room, Ricci addresses a love lyric to China: Your porcelain is so fine, so thin, /a brass wire can repair it . . . /Once I saw you beneath the bamboo/ . . . bent back/from the world, stitching porcelain.) With a felicity rare in a debut volume, Larsen's opalescent poetry works in perfect counterpoint to the strange and brilliant Ricci

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0811211614
• ISBN13: 9780811211611
• Release Date: April 1991
• Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
• Length: 61 Pages
• Weight: 0.28 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.7" x 6.2"