in the mirror there is always this moment<br />this moment leads to the door of rebirth<br />the door opens to the sea<br />the rose of time<br />             —Bei Dao <br /><br /><em>The Rose of Time: New & Selected Poems</em> presents a glowing selection of poetry by contemporary China's most celebrated poet, Bei Dao. From his earliest work, Bei Dao developed a wholly original poetic language composed of mysterious and arresting images tuned to a distinctive musical key. This collection spans Bei Dao's entire writing life, from his first book to appear in English, The August Sleepwalker, published a year after the Tiananmen tragedy, to the increasingly interior and complex poems of <em>Landscape Over Zero</em> and <em>Unlock</em>, to new never-before-published work. This bilingual edition also includes a prefatory note by the poet, and a brief afterword by the editor Eliot Weinberger. A must-read book from a seminal poet who has been translated into over thirty languages.