About Author

Taiwanese poet Xiang Yang .

Reportage about Xiang Yang

The Builder of Bridges
          by John Balcom

Renowned writer Xiang Yang passes big milestone
          by Jewel Huang

Un poeta de frente al sol
          by Por Nestor Martinez

Xiang Yang (b. 1955) is the pen name of Lin Chi-yang, was born in Nantou, Taiwan. He received a B.A. in Japanese and an M.A. in journalism from Chinese Culture University, and earn a Ph.D. in journalism at National Zhengzhi University.He is professor of  Graduate School of Taiwanese Culture in National Taipei University of Education.

He worked as chief editor of China Times Weekly and of the literary supplement of the Independence Evening Post before becoming executive editor of the latter publication.

Since the mid-1970s Xiang Yang has been active on the poetry scene. He confounded a 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 prolific writer, he has published twelve books of poetry, two English translations of selected poems, one Japanese translations of selected poems, eleven volumes of essays, another seven of literary criticism and social commentaries, and children’s stories.

His most significant volumes of poetry include Ten-line Poems, a collection of formalist verse; Time, a selection of narrative poems; Songs of the Soil, a book of poems written in Taiwanese; The Four Seasons, provide the reader with a comprehensive picture of Taiwan in the 1980s; and Chaos, represented a chaos situation of contemporary Taiwan.

Xiang Yang is a regional poet in the best sense of the word : his poetry comments on the universal human condition without sacrificing a sense of place.