The Red Piano (2008) - Andre LeBlanc
NOTE: This is based on a true story.
Andre interviewed Zhu Xiao-Mei in April 2007.
She is now a virtuoso pianist.
A camp
Lost between
Inner Mongolia
And China
Music
Playing music
Secretly
The only way to keep a child's senses
Untangled
Unbarbed
Just wired
She secures the notes on
Fragile
Re-used
Paper
Transportable testimony of
Hope
Someday
Far away
She will erase
Five years of
Invisibility
Exile
And play the music of
Freedom...
Someday...
So far away....
PREVIOUS POSTS ON THE RED PIANO
The Red Piano Quotes
The Red Piano Begins
GOODREADS REVIEW
The Red Piano by André LeBlancMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Manual labour for children during China's Cultural Revolution was a time of abyssmal darkness for creativity. Just how dark and negative that time could be is demonstrated by The Red Piano. Unless of course, that child is Zhu Xiao-Mei, longing to find her voice playing the piano. Quietly she rebelled, determined to let her music be heard. How she rebelled evolves into a mesmerising, humbling story.
My poetic review is on my Songlines on the Winds blog.
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15 comments:
exile has to be hard...so alone and cut off from your people....the song, the music adds a sadness to me that you can only find in music...esp in such isolation...nice
so glad that she had the strength to rebel..and that she found her voice in this.. curious to read a bit more about her story..
I am glad that she will have freedom...someday! That is a beautiful thought.
Lovely review...and I hope she finds the freedom to play someday ~
Striving to erase the invisibility - it's a struggle for so many in this world.
You have given the reader just enough to stir our interest in the book, and plenty more to think about. Thank you.
Beautiful review. The word red is aptly put.
It's the music- the music playing at the end that really elevated this. Because music has such depth of emotion, such nostalgia, is able to conjure up memory, both good and bad, - it is these elements that for me bring out the beautiful sadness in this piece. Thank you for sharing!
"Someday
Far away
She will erase
Five years of
Invisibility
Exile"
A moving poem about the losses of an era and one musician! The book looks wonderful. I did not know this history despite knowing a lot about the red guard and about Chinese theatre. Your poem compels me to look closer--I am so glad you posted it as a sad beauty.
This story reminds me of the dvd From Mao to Mozart, when Perlman traveled to China and found a gap between age groups - he asked what had happened? it was the cultural revolution........when music was banned. Somehow, secretly, some kept the music alive. This looks like a movie right up my alley. Love your poem.
The hope in the darkness...truly beauty in the sadness. Love that you have shared of a piece of her story.
Excellent post ... very emotional and touching.
Namaste
What an amazing story and poem!
Hi there! Please check out my new poetry blogzine and submit your best work: brevitypoetryreview.blogspot.com/
The ability to play and the urge to listen to music during a time of exile and desolation is its own testimony of hope. Written words to carry and live on...another. Eloquent and beautiful!
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