Chung Ling's collaboration with Kenneth Rexroth in the translation of classical Chinese poetry is one of the most successful partnerships in 20th century literary translation, resulting in two important books on Chinese women writers: Li Ch’ing-chao. Complete Poems and The Orchid Boat. Their work is represented in the inaugural issue of Renditions (Autumn 1973). Chung Ling's other translations published in Renditions include poems in Nos. 19 & 20 and Nos. 27 & 28.

The exhibits shown here are taken from The Orchid Boat, an anthology which includes the work of Chinese women poets from the classical and modern traditions. It was a truly ground-breaking work in the introduction of Chinese writing women to the West.

Kenneth Rexroth (1905-1982)

Kenneth Rexroth was a poet and a co-founder of the San Francisco Poetry Center. Born in 1905 in South Bend, Indiana, he was educated mainly by his parents. As a young man he was a wanderer who sometimes worked as a casual labourer. Later on he became a political radical, and associated with various leftist and avant-garde movements. His work was closely associated with the Beat generation of the 1950s. He was San Francisco correspondent of The Nation from 1953 to 1968, and a columnist of San Francisco Examiner from 1960 to 1968.

Apart from writing poetry, Kenneth Rexroth was also known as a painter. As a literary translator he rendered into English poetry written in French, Spanish, and Greek. He is well known for his translations of classical and modern Chinese and Japanese poetry. He co-translated with Chung Ling works of Chinese women poets, which are published in Orchid Boat: Woman Poets of China and Li Ch'ing-chao: Complete Poems. He died in 1982.

It is a well-known fact that the Anglo-American new poetics of the first half of the 20th century drew upon translations from Asia as an important source of inspiration. Rexroth's interest in Chinese and Japanese poetry is therefore very much part of the modern American poetic tradition.