Ouyang Yu / Leaf poems
On Sunday, 31 July 2022, acclaimed poet, writer, and editor Ouyang Yu opened his leaf poem exhibit in connection with our Bookclub Conversation event.
The hanging exhibit presented a random selection of his 'leaf poems', written during his daily walks in Bundoora Park during the Victoria-wide COVID-19 lockdown. A selection of leaf poems, also written during this time, were scattered along the table below.
The poems presented were bilingual, sometimes written in Chinese, sometimes in English and sometimes in both languages.
If Chinese wasn’t their mother tongue, audience members could use Google Translate or scan the nearby interpretive text for a translation (which also appears below). Or, they could leave the mystery of the language of the leaves undiscovered and instead focus on the beauty of their leaf forms. Nearby was also a jar of leaves for visitors to leave their own leaf poems.
Alongside the leaves, a range of Ouyang's published titles were exhibited - books of fiction, non-fiction, poetry and prose - offered for sale for a limited time.
The selection included his series of 'rejected works', self-published in 2020 as limited editions of one, namely: West of the River, Spring Waters: Li Yu, the Emperor of Poetry and Small Says: Words, Stories and Mini-Meditations.
At our Bookclub Conversation event (pictured above), Ouyang read from Spring Waters: Li Yu, the Emperor of Poetry and shared his experiences of writing the book.
To read a long-form interview with Ouyang, which further explores the single-edition concept and much more, press the ‘Learn more’ button below.
