Yi Ping

(24 July 1952 – 30 December 2024)

Yi Ping –– poet, essayist, teacher, and cultural critic –– died of cancer on December 30, 2024, after a brief illness. He is survived by his wife Lin Zhou and son Mao; commemorative services were held in Candor on January 5, 2025, attended by friends and extended family.

Yi Ping (born Li Jianhau in Beijing, China) was the first exiled writer–in-residence of the newly founded Ithaca City of Asylum. He and his family arrived in Ithaca from New York City the week after 9/11. They had come to the U.S. after two stays in Poland when life in Beijing had proved dangerous: Yi Ping had published in a pro-democracy journal that was later banned and sponsored an art exhibition that was soon closed; his participation in the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement resulted in his being permanently prohibited from teaching and publishing. (In their teens, Yi Ping and Lin had already survived hard labor in the countryside as part of Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution.)

During his ICOA residency (2001-03), Yi Ping taught Chinese at Cornell University, participated in ICOA’s annual Voices of Freedom events, and collaborated with Ithaca College professor Jerry Mirskin and students in a poetry translation course. Now able to write freely, Yi Ping published in Chinese language journals and supported dissident Chinese writers. His wife Lin worked in Alumni Affairs and Development at Cornell University, and they eventually bought a house in Newfield, New York, and were happy to make their home in this area. A hardworking craftsman with his hands as well as his words, Yi Ping restored their home as well as several others he brought to life and use again.

Yi Ping’s works include the poetry collections Blue Sunflowers, Drifting Boats, and Thorn Birds; the essay collection, The Fields Behind Tree; and an unfinished epic, The Hunter Hai Li Bu. With writer and Nobel Prize nominee Zheng Yi, in 2001 he co-founded the still-thriving Independent Chinese PEN Center, of which he was an early director and continuing positive contributor.

Kind, gentle, and modest, Yi Ping was a generous friend and warm host, his beautiful and ready smile welcoming everyone. His radiant spirit and work reflected his favorite quote by W. H. Auden on Yeats: “With the farming of a verse / make a vineyard of the curse.”

Two longtime friends and close colleagues of Yi Ping — Zheng Yi and his wife, the journalist Bei Ming — composed a tribute, which Zheng Yi delivered at the memorial service: “Ithaca, the homeland of the Greek hero Odysseus from Homer’s epics, calls for his return across time. Three thousand three hundred years later, Ithaca gave Yi Ping, who had lost his homeland, a warm refuge, allowing him to ‘dwell poetically’ here and pursue the homeland of his soul.”

Another friend said:“A sincere and genuine individual who treated others with heartfelt honesty, Yi Ping was a diligent and humble teacher, as well as a solitary yet resilient poet. While he brought warmth and encouragement to others, he bore the unbearable weight of life deep within himself.”

We’re proud to have been associated with Yi Ping and grateful to have been friends with him and his family. We mourn his passing.

At the family’s request, donations can be made in Yi Ping’s honor to Ithaca City of Asylum, at https://ithacacityofasylum.org/donate/.