Steven Xu – Review of Katherine L Gordon’s ‘After Midnight’

Gordon Xu LE P&W February 2025

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Live Encounters Poetry & Writing February 2025

Steven Xu  – Review of Katherine L Gordon’s,  ‘After Midnight’.
Translated from English to Chinese by Anna Yin.

SureWay Press, 2024
138 pages. ISBN:978-1998911042
Book available at: https//:amazon.ca

To contact the author for interviews, readings, and other events:
anna.yin@gmail.com


Two weeks ago, I met Terry Barker, a professor teaching Canadian Studies at Humber Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning for years before his retirement, for a conversation at a local restaurant. Seeing through the large windows, I caught a glimpse of the snowflakes outside. It was a very enjoyable time sitting inside the room to talk to Terry as an old Canadian friend who had welcomed me, and mentored me in my professional life in Canada as a new immigrant for the past few years. Near the end of the conversation, Terry handed me a well-designed book with a cover showing a beautiful moon against the mysterious forest, and said that it was a gift.

I had never heard of Ms. Gordon before, but her words immediately struck a chord. I opened the book to read the verses closely and resonated with the author’s introduction:

After Midnight is a collection of poems that reflect some vibrant years of discovery, observation and experience of what being alive in this vast sea of life really means for each of us, as we seek a place in a huge and complicated universe. Some of it is lonely, some of it so intimately connected with all natural phenomena that we are never truly alone”. (Foreword, p.9)

These condensed but profound words reminded me of my own journeys of “discovery, observation and experience” during the years of travelling to different countries to study and work, and later as an immigrant to Canada.

Just as the Oxford professor, Alister McGrath, has said, “Human beings are meaning-seeking creatures.” The journeys can be very “lonely” sometimes, but we are “truly not alone”. As you go through Ms. Gordon’s book page by page, verse by verse, you can journey with her to “Reaching Midnight” as “we become the shadows/in some ingenue’s dream”, explore the meaning of “The Myth of Being” through “The stars that lent us dust/ sing in our blood…”, listen to the “Cosmic Chorus” as “we blow between hope and despair…”, to meditate on a life lesson from “Learning from Leaves” (Leaves wing to earth/like erring angels…), to travel back to English Epic story through “Beowulf’s Blade”, and to contemplate Scottish culture while on “ The Chair at Crathes Castle”. Also, while “Waiting for The Camelot Ferry” beside “the scarlet and gold bannered banks of the ancient Eramosa” in Ontario, you can “Sail In A River of Light” … and explore the meaning of existence. Through her precious words, we are taken to a discourse with her regarding some important topics, such as Nature, history, culture, metaphysics, and cosmology. By engaging in such conversations, just as she said in the Foreword, “We mature into connection: a moon beam caught on the path, a leaf before winter in our hand, a rose opening in wonder, a heart that beats with wind and water murmur…”(Foreword, p.9).

I appreciate both Ms. Gordon and Ms. Yin (the translator)’s passion about writing poetry, as I believe that it is an important part of our literary lives. As Confucius said, “My children, why do you not study the Book of Poetry? The Odes serve to stimulate the mind. They may be used for purposes of self-contemplation. They teach the art of sociability. They show how to regulate feelings of resentment. From them you learn the more immediate duty of serving one’s father, and the more remote one of serving one’s prince. From them we become largely acquainted with the names of birds, beasts, and plants” (The Analect:Yang Huo). So, Ms. Gordon’s effort can help poetry- lovers to experience the benefits of reading poems.

In addition, the joint effort of two Canadian poets both share their love in nature and humanity, one from the West, the other from the East, coming together to inspire the conversations between the eastern and western mind, can spark more insightful ideas on the exploration of universal truth about human life. Thus, I highly recommend this book for thoughtful and artistic readers.

I could immediately recognize Ms. Yin’s name when I received the book from Terry, as I have read quite a few other books translated by her. Her inspiring journey of becoming a poet, and successful immigration story, has been one of my inspirations personally. Regarding her literary expertise, this is another book that shows her talent in translation. For those who are able to read Chinese and are willing to study Chinese, this is an ideal text to use. As a student of Chinese literature and a translator myself, I trust Ms. Yin’s translation. I believe that translation is a process of re-creation, which requires the translator to have both language skills and cultural sensitivity. When it comes to translating poems, sensitive minds and souls are needed. In this regard, we can see that Ms. Yin could not be a better candidate for such a work. From the narrative of her years of encounter with the author at the end of the book, we can see that two beautiful souls inspire and appreciate each other here. Due to these personal, cultural and poetic connections, I can see that Ms. Yin can really dive into the “souls” of the poems, and evoke them in her delicate Chinese translations very well.

I am looking forward to more interaction in cross-culture contexts via such a profound artistic, cultural, and spiritual manner by the means of such wonderful books as are projected by SureWay Press. By having these, we won’t be alone in our life journeys.


© Steven Xu

Steven XuSteven Xu studied Chinese as a second language in YUNNAN Normal University (a teachers’ university) in Southwestern China and worked as a translator in Ethiopia from 2007 to 2009. He immigrated to Canada in 2018, and has been teaching courses related to business and culture at St.Clair College in Ontario. He has been studying the works of some writers such as C.S.Lewis and J.R.R.Tolkien for more than ten years and has given a few lectures on the famous children’s literature series, “The Chronicles of Narnia”.

Katherine L Gordon is a poet, publisher, author, anthologist, judge and reviewer. She has many books, chap-books and co-operative publications with peers internationally whose works inspire her. She is the recipient of many awards including Best Foreign Author from the 9th international edition of “I Colori Dell Anima” in Italy. She earned an award from The World Poetry Association for her contribution to peace poetry. Her work is translated into many languages. She has contributed to Blue Collar Review with poems that promote brotherhood and peace in a repressive political era. Her latest books: Awareness with James Deahl, and After Midnight with a Chinese translation by Anna Yin , SureWay Press, stress the need to see all cultures as worthy and equal. Katherine believes that poetry is a unifying force across the world. Her new collection Celtic Fantasies reflect the eternal cosmic connection we all share.

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