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台灣藝術家英文簡傳（12）－詩人向陽

Poet Xiang Yang 

編輯／邱斐顯 

Editior／Felicity Fei-Hsien Chiu 

 

A note about Poet Xiang Yang （向陽）


Xiang Yang is the pen name of Lin Chi-yang（林淇瀁）, who was born in Nantou in central Taiwan in 1955. He received a B.A. in Japanese and an M.A. in journalism from Chinese Culture University , and earned a Ph.D. in journalism from National Zhengzhi University . He worked as chief editor of China Times Weekly and was vice president of the Independence Evening Post. He is now a professor of Taiwanese literature at National Taipei University of Education.


Since the mid-1970s, Xiang Yang has been active on the poetry scene. He founded gathering in the Sunshine Poetry Society in 1979 and was among the first in Taiwan to write modern poetry in Taiwanese. He attended the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa in 1985, helped establish the Taiwanese PEN in 1987 and served as its vice president in 1990. As a prolific writer, he has published 12 books of poetry, two English translations of selected poems, 11 volumes of essays, another seven of literary criticism and social commentaries, as well as children's stories and poetry.


Xiang Yang got the idea of composing the Choral Symphony in Taiwanese after being invited to attend the Poet Festival in El Salvador in October 2007, where the official language is Spanish. However, he was glad to find that local people enjoyed his poems by his expression even though he recited them in Taiwanese which they could not understand.

Photo courtesy of Xiang Yang 


The above information is edited by Felicity Fei-Hsien CHIU（邱斐顯）, former editor of center of web and wireless news service, the Central News Agency.