Wang Ping on the Kinship of Rivers

If you were to give the third or fourth longest river in the world a wish, it might simply to run free or to be clean and pure again. In the summer of 2013, the world's third longest river, the Yangtze, will get 2,000 wishes in a program called the Kinship of Rivers. The 2,000 will be done through prayer flags, in the spirit of the 1,200 flags that have been placed alongside the Mississippi River and its tributaries over the last three years. These river flags, modeled after Tibetan prayer flags, were accompanied by poetry and art as part of an outreach project designed to promote peace and link people from the Mississippi river communities with that of their Chinese brethren on the Yangtze. the intention is to make a network of rivers with the whole world. The activist, novelist, poet and professor Wang Ping started the project. She was born in Shanghai, grew up on a small island in the East China sea, and attended Beijing university. In 1985 she left China to study in the United States, earning her PhD from NYU, New York University. Her books include 2 collections of poetry, a cultural study, a novel, and 2 collections of fictional stories. To hear the original audio of this interview, click here. Check out more of what the Lab does here, and listen to more current and archival podcasts on Spotify or on our website. To get original poetry right in your mailbox this summer and build peaceful connections across the globe check out the Poetry Postcard Fest.