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Contemporary Chinese Poet to Speak at Westminster College

Posted on Monday, April 23, 2007

Huang Xiang, contemporary Chinese poet, will read his poetry at Westminster College as part of the Heinz Lecture Series Monday, May 7, at 7 p.m. in Mueller Theater of the McKelvey Campus Center.

Born in Hunan Province, Huang Xiang was first arrested in 1959 for leaving one province without official permission and seeking employment in another. For this he was sentenced to four years in a reform camp similar to a Russian gulag. In 1965 he was arrested for engaging in counterrevolutionary activities-writing, reading, and discussing human rights-and was sentenced to three more years of hard labor and forbidden to read or write. By the time he was 25, he had served more than seven years in prison and served a total of 12. His writings were banned in China for 40 years.

"I like to recite poems in a big voice, and I like to whisper, and sometimes I like to use silence. Silence in Eastern philosophy is a bigger voice-just one that's not audible to our ears," said Xiang. "When I perform my poems, I also use PowerPoint, so the English text is there on the screen- sometimes with images. Sometimes people say they understand me even without translation, as if they were watching me dance."

"The Heinz Lecture Series of events focuses on the nature of study of religion in our world of plural religious traditions," said Dr. Bryan Rennie, Westminster associate professor of religion and organizer of the Heinz Lecture Series. "Our intention is to host both cultural representatives of the world's religious traditions and the academic and theological scholars who study them."

Contact Rennie at (724) 946-7151 or e-mail mailto:brennie@westminster.edu for more information.

Huang Xiang