Made in China
︎
Made in China was at least inspired in China, if not altogether "made" there. On a rare trip far from home (the Trappist Abbey of the Genesee in NY) I gave some talks at our monastery in Hong Kong and had a chance to tour around a little. The poem depicts a variety of vertical journeys in settings where popular and sacred cultures merge. The last section is set in Macau in a tower modelled on the Space Needle in Washington, home to the world's highest bungee jump...
--
John (Isaac) Slater, originally from Toronto, Canada, is a monk at the Abbey of the Genesee in New York. He's published two books of poems, Surpassing Pleasure, and Lean, along with a co-translation of Hafiz, The Tangled Braid: Ninety-Nine Poems by Hafiz of Shiraz (with Jeffrey Einboden) and most recently Beyond Measure: the Poetics of the Image in Bernard of Clairvaux, (available here: https://monksbread.com/collections/books)