CONCENTRIC CIRCLES
同心圆 · Yang Lian 杨炼
CIRCLE I
Three chapters · nine poetic units
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CIRCLE I · THREE LENSES OVERVIEW
Lens I · The Remainder and the Tenant — architecture and grammar →
Lens II · The Emptied Temple — philosophy and spirit →
Lens III · A Hundred Kidneys Singing — image, affect and the experience of reading →
CIRCLE II
Three chapters · eleven poetic units
CHAPTER ONE
Midnight Letter — first occurrence
CHAPTER TWO
Complete poem in five movements
CHAPTER THREE
Midnight Letter — second occurrence
CIRCLE II · THREE LENSES OVERVIEW
Lens I · The Wings and the Word — architecture and grammar →
Lens II · Tended by Death: Circle Two and the Owed I — philosophy and spirit →
Lens III · Warm Distance and the Forty-Year-Old Garment — image, affect and reading →
CIRCLE III
Three chapters · three poetic units
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CIRCLE III · THREE LENSES OVERVIEW
Lens I · The Door and the Tower — architecture and grammar →
Lens II · A Tower Built Downward: Circle Three, the Angel and Babel — philosophy and spirit →
Lens III · Each Step into Empty Air and the Cemetery Underfoot — image, affect and reading →
CIRCLE IV
Eight poetic units
A Labyrinth Gradually Growing I
A Labyrinth Gradually Growing II
A Labyrinth Gradually Growing III
A Labyrinth Gradually Growing IV
CIRCLE IV · THREE LENSES OVERVIEW
Lens I · The Labyrinth and the Couplet — architecture and grammar →
Lens II · The Dead Know the Way: Circle Four and a Comedy without Paradise — philosophy and spirit →
Lens III · Learning Painlessness and the Line That Came Back Worse — image, affect and reading →
CIRCLE V
Three sections · twenty-one poetic units
TALKING
EARTH
INCH
CIRCLE V · THREE LENSES OVERVIEW
Lens I · The Radical and the Copula — architecture and grammar →
Lens II · The Temple Taken Apart: Circle Five, the Name, and a Retrospect — philosophy and spirit →
Lens III · Embracing Braille and What the Five Circles Did to a Reader — image, affect and reading →
FURTHER READINGS ON THE COLLECTION
Jan-Peter Schuring, developed in dialogue with AI.
Yang Lian and the Architecture of Time. From the written character to the structures of Yi and Concentric Circles, a sustained exploration of spatial poetics, history and translation.
LISTEN — AI-generated audio discussion →
The Subtraction Grammar of Concentric Circles’ Circle One →
A reading of Circle One’s subtraction, perception and identity through the lens of relational ontology.
A reading of Concentric Circles through enclosure, descent and Yang Lian’s dialogue with Qu Yuan.
Questions Written on the Wall →
Qu Yuan’s Temple and the Deconstruction of Surface Reality in Yang Lian’s Concentric Circles
Moved Once Again: Deep Reality from the Preface to The Submerged Source →
A reading of “deep reality” that brings the preface to Concentric Circles into dialogue with Yang Lian’s essay on Qu Yuan.
From Yi to Concentric Circles →
The evolution of a poetic universe
How to Read a Poetic Universe →
Finding Our Way Through Yang Lian’s YI and Concentric Circles
A reading of YI and Concentric Circles alongside Merleau-Ponty, exploring how seeing, touching and being seen unsettle the self—and why relation need not mean fusion.
LISTEN — AI-generated audio discussion · English →
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