Water Sprite: Songs for the God of Small Things

Praise for Luo Ying:“Luo Ying’s 7 + 2 A Mountain Climber’s Journal, which he calls ‘mankind’s first “7 + 2 Poetry Action,” ’ is the poetic record of his successful summiting of the tallest peaks on every continent and his treks to the North and South Poles. He documents in searing detail his encounters, in the most extreme conditions, with other climbers, Sherpas, and himself. ‘While the rest of the world is sleeping,’ he writes, ‘I’m striding toward the light’—and that light shines on every page of this extraordinary book. For ‘the mountain god has allowed [him] to bring back from the mountains a way of being that is natural, assured, and collected.’ This is wisdom literature of the highest order.” —Christopher Merrill, author of Necessities “These poems simultaneously celebrate the human spirt and the natural world, just as they critique our impact on the very landscapes within which we dwell. It is my hope that these poems become like mountain passes, navigable routes through the mountain range of different languages, cultures, classes, and ecological experiences. Our planet’s most  magnificent mountain ranges have long presented humans with forbidding barriers to travel, trade, and communication, and as such have become deeply lodged into our species psyche. While summiting peaks may provide fleeting moments of nearly omniscient perspective, poetry can serve as lasting passes through which we may cross for generations to come.” — Jonathan Stallings