A PATHÉTIQUE SONATA FOR THE CAGED CHILDREN: Appassionata Fugue Melodies Ink-Brushed Under Calligraphic Art

Wing-chi Chan
Scarith, 2020
92 Pages, 15 Photos
ISBN 978-1-7330408-6-0 Paperback

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About the Author

Wing-Chi Chan 陳詠智, Chair Professor for Classics at Beijing Capital Normal University, is a Washington-based poet cum musician.  Under this poetry anthology, Chan employs various illustrative fonts to vitalize a synchronized tonal rhyming wordscape which visually displays a textured density of calligraphic art for point, line, shape, curve and spatiality, encapsulating a vision of the twenty-first-century pointillism, stratification, minimalism and serialism, in mirroring of the ink-brushing fugue melodies on an unsung passion derived from a pathétique sonata for the vulnerable.  Chan’s poems have been broadcasted and recorded under The Poet & The Poem from the Library of Congress and been listed/documented under A Splendid Wakeup Blog of the George Washington University’s Gelman Library.  Chan has been serving as presenter/producer for the RHYMING FOR THE NANKING MASSACRE VICTIMS at the Arts Club of Washington and POETRY EXTRAVANGAZA/ UNA POESÍA EN ECO POETRY IN ECHO at the George Washington University.  A wide range of Chan’s poetry has been published, including MASS FOR NANKING’S 1937: Synchronizing Musics and Tonal Rhyming onto Poetry, Washington: The New Academia Publishing, 2016 [Being rated for 5.0 out of 5 stars at Amazon];  A Duo Concerto For Moon & Noon, under 2015 MiPOesias of Washington;  poems under the Federal Poets, 2018-2020.  Also he served as Visiting Scholar at Yale and consultants for National Endowment for the Arts, New Jersey and South Carolina Arts Commissions, D.C. Mayor’s Office, and China National Symphony; D.C. Commissioner for National & Communities Services; Project Director for Meet The Composer New Residencies Program; Vice President for Washington Symphony Orchestra’s Board; adjunct professor of Shenyang Music Conservatory in China, and Master’s thesis external examiner for New York University.  During his tenure as Development Director, Chan raised millions of dollars to operate the Washington, DC Youth Orchestra’s ten concert tours to Europe and Asia.  In 2007, Chan, as choral conductor, took a team of twelve American vocalists to participate in a Memorial Concert for the 70th Anniversary of Nanking Massacre.

About the book

A Pathétique Sonata for the Caged Children is an ambitious, highly engaging, dynamic work – full of interesting plays in complexities and cares. The scope of this collection is wide….The effect is rich, highly varied, far reaching, political, international, historical, contemporary, universal, personal – by turns light and tender and sad and joyful – and an arresting blending of Chinese and American.”

—Michael Whelan, Chair, Literary Events Committee, Arts Club of Washington

Praise

“Wing-Chi Chan shapes and forms his tiny operas and then terms them “tonal poetry.”  The tone represents a place for change… A ONE TIME ONLY MASTERWORK OF ITS KIND never to be repeated or imitated.  Making something never seen before is magic and Wing-Chi Chan is the magician.”         —Grace Cavalieri, Maryland Poet Laureate

“Each line contains a hidden sound of music that is yet to be written. We can even read his poetry as hidden music scores…History resounds between his poetic lines as he tries to remind us of the endless cruelties that mankind has inflicted on themselves.  Few poets today are capable of aspiring to such lofty heights as this self-styled global citizen.” —Leo Ou-fan Lee, Professor of Chinese Literature, emeritus, Harvard University and Chair Professor of Humanities, Chinese University of Hong Kong

“Wing-Chi flies high and far as each line is like a belt around the world. He recognizes no disparate connections between words….You’ll want to read Wing-chi viscerally. Just leave your reason out of it. He’s not talking to that part of you.“ —A. B. Spellman, Poet & Witness to Jazz and Former Deputy Chairman, U.S. National Endowment for the Arts

Wing-Chi Chan’s second poetry anthology consists of stanzas embedded with classical music in voice, going hand in hand with the art form and aesthetics of traditional Chinese poetry and calligraphy.”  —Steven K. Luk, Ph.D., Former Director for The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press, Faculty for General Studies, Hang Seng University, Hong Kong