Walter Benjamin called translation "The Third Language", because a translation is neither the same as the original, nor the same as the normal foreign-language of other texts, for it is something unique, something set apart from either, just as bronze forged from copper and tin overcomes the brittleness of copper and the softness of tin to become both hard and pliable, as if it has become a new element. In this volume, Chinese poets and English-language poets come together to translate each other's work. The Chinese poets involved are: Jiang Tao, Leng Shuang, Tang Xiaodu, Wang Xaoni, Xiao Kaiyu, Xi Chuan, Yan Li, Yang Lian, Yang Xiaobin, Yu Jian, Zang Di, Zhai Yongming, Zhang Wei and Zhou Zan, while the Western representatives are: Nicholas Admussen, Tony Barnstone, Polly Clark, Jennifer Crawford, Antony Dunn, W.N. Herbert, Sean O'Brien, Pascale Petit, Fiona Sampson, Arthur Sze, George Szirtes and Joshua Weiner.

Riding Pisces brings together a number of hard-to-find and uncollected texts from almost the full extent of Yang Lian's career: from Masks and Crocodiles (Sydney, 1990-although the translations here are new), from the out-of-print collection Non-Person Singular (London, 1994), from Notes of a Blissful Ghost, (Hong Kong, 2002), from the Sailor's Home six-handed anthology (Shearsman Books, 2005), and from the as-yet-uncollected Dark Blue Verses.

Sailor's Home is a miscellany (or anthology) of poems by six poets who came together for a private festival in London in October 2005. The poets are Arjen Duinker (Netherlands), W.N. Herbert (UK), Uwe Kolbe (Germany), Peter Laugesen (Denmark), Karine Martel (France) and Yang Lian (China), whose idea the festival was. Each poet takes the phrase "Sailor's Home" and builds a work from it in his or her own language. The festival, featuring the six poets and invited guest, and the book as a record of the event, demonstrate how the poets interact acroos languages and cultures. All the poems are presented in their original languages and in English translation. While the festival was a one-off event, the poems remain, and the book stands testimony to the creative impulse amongst friends whose poetry can cross borders. A fascinating document.