Chinese Poetry Collection for Children?
Jan. 23rd, 2012 03:57 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png)
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Hello,
I have been a member for quite a while, but up to now I never posted projects of my own, I'd like the community's input on this.
I am a cultural mediator for China, and I work a lot with schools. Recently teachers keep asking me about Chinese classical poetry: info on authors, translation of poems, suggestions and materials for using Chinese poetry in class.
And that set me thinking, since as far as I know there aren't any collections of translated Chinese poetry aimed at children over here.
I keep visualizing a book like this:
Front matter: an introduction to the Chinese poetry of the 'golden age' (definitely Tang, possibly with something about the Song too), a pronunciation table and a short bio for each of the included poets (all in a 'register' that could be good both for teachers / parents and for older kids, keeping things simple never hurts).
The poems: first in a 'one page per line' format. with the original Chinese, a transcription and the translation, like this (the transcription will have the tones marked):
危樓高百尺﹐
wei lou gao bai chi
A tower of one hundred feet
With an illustration portraying the image in the line, then the whole poem on a single page.
I have most of the materials for the front matter already and I'll need just to select the poems and translate them (some I have already because of previous projects).
At the start I thought about doing an ebook in Italian, but a version in English wouldn't be that much more work (again, much of the front matter I have in both languages) and offering both an ebook and a paper edition would be a dream.
I wonder wheter crowdfunding could be a viable option, for starters I'll need an editor for the English version and an illustrator (I'd love something in watercolor, not aping classical Chinese paintings but with a bit of that flavour), and hopefully enough to cover a trial print run.
Perks could be : a copy of the e-book, a copy of the paper book (if we make enough), the possibility to sponsor a specific illustration and have the patron's name listed in the credit, or that plus a print of the sponsored illustration,...
At the moment, though what I'll need most would be an interested editor, illustrator and, maybe, publisher/printer to have an idea of the sum needed.
Opinions, please?
Crossposted to my own journal
I have been a member for quite a while, but up to now I never posted projects of my own, I'd like the community's input on this.
I am a cultural mediator for China, and I work a lot with schools. Recently teachers keep asking me about Chinese classical poetry: info on authors, translation of poems, suggestions and materials for using Chinese poetry in class.
And that set me thinking, since as far as I know there aren't any collections of translated Chinese poetry aimed at children over here.
I keep visualizing a book like this:
Front matter: an introduction to the Chinese poetry of the 'golden age' (definitely Tang, possibly with something about the Song too), a pronunciation table and a short bio for each of the included poets (all in a 'register' that could be good both for teachers / parents and for older kids, keeping things simple never hurts).
The poems: first in a 'one page per line' format. with the original Chinese, a transcription and the translation, like this (the transcription will have the tones marked):
危樓高百尺﹐
wei lou gao bai chi
A tower of one hundred feet
With an illustration portraying the image in the line, then the whole poem on a single page.
I have most of the materials for the front matter already and I'll need just to select the poems and translate them (some I have already because of previous projects).
At the start I thought about doing an ebook in Italian, but a version in English wouldn't be that much more work (again, much of the front matter I have in both languages) and offering both an ebook and a paper edition would be a dream.
I wonder wheter crowdfunding could be a viable option, for starters I'll need an editor for the English version and an illustrator (I'd love something in watercolor, not aping classical Chinese paintings but with a bit of that flavour), and hopefully enough to cover a trial print run.
Perks could be : a copy of the e-book, a copy of the paper book (if we make enough), the possibility to sponsor a specific illustration and have the patron's name listed in the credit, or that plus a print of the sponsored illustration,...
At the moment, though what I'll need most would be an interested editor, illustrator and, maybe, publisher/printer to have an idea of the sum needed.
Opinions, please?
Crossposted to my own journal