As part of my celebration of National Poetry Month, I'll highlight some recent poetry finds. Today is:
The Selected Poems of Wang Wei by Wang Wei translated by David Hinton
David Hinton, whose much-acclaimed translations of Li Po and Tu Fu have become classics, now completes the triumvirate of China's greatest poets with The Selected Poems of Wang Wei.
Wang Wei (701-761 C.E.) is often spoken of, with his contemporaries Li Po and Tu Fu, as one of the three greatest poets in China's 3,000-year poetic tradition. Of the three, Wang was the consummate master of the short imagistic landscape poem that came to typify classical Chinese poetry. He developed a nature poetry of resounding tranquillity wherein deep understanding goes far beyond the words on the page -a poetics that can be traced to his assiduous practice of Ch'an (Zen) Buddhism.
Farewell to Yang, Who's Leaving for Kuo-chou by Wang WeiThose canyons are too narrow to travel.
How will you make your way there, whenit's a mere bird-path—a thousand miles
and gibbons howling all day and night?We offer travel-spirits wine, then you're
gone: Nü-lang Shrine, mountain forestsand beyond. But we still share a radiant
moon. And do you hear a nightjar there?
Recommendations: Wang Wei & Chinese Poetry
Amazon
Laughing Lost in the Mountains: Poems of Wang Wei
The poetry of Wang Wei: New translations and commentary
Barnes & Noble
Three Chinese Poets: Translations of Poems by Wang Wei, Li Bai, and Du Fu Translation by Vikram Seth (a fine author as well).
Nineteen Ways of Looking at Wang Wei: How a Chinese Poem Is Translated by Eliot Weinberger & Octavio Paz
The Anchor Book of Chinese Poetry: From Ancient to Contemporary, The Full 3000-Year Tradition, Tony Barnstone & Chou Ping, Eds.
Posted by ronn at April 3, 2006 01:15 PM