David Hinton is a marvelous translator who has for years now been dusting off classical Chinese poetry, giving wonderful poems a fresh idiom and a newly clean surface. He's just published CLASSICAL CHINESE POETRY: AN ANTHOLOGY, from Farrar Straus, and it's splendid, just as his previous volumes would have led us to expect. I could quote this book half the night, but here's a poem that feels especially apt to me as I'm getting a little wound up about the NBA next week. It's by Wang Wei, and it dates from the 8th century.
OFFHAND POEM
I'm ancient, lazy about making poems.
There's no company here but old age.
I no doubt painted in some former life,
roamed the delusion of words in another,
and habit lingers. Unable to get free,
I somehow became known in the world,
but my most fundamental name remains
this mind still here beyond all knowing.
6 comments:
Yes! A marvelous collection. I posted a piece on Hinton's anthology earlier this week on my site. Therein you'll find a link to Elliot Weinberger's review of another collection making reference to Hinton's style -- now the dominant way, since Rexroth and Snyder -- "the standard idiom for Chinese poetry in English."
I no doubt painted in some former life,
roamed the delusion of words in another,
and habit lingers.
That is just flat-out gorgeous.
I need to find a library copy soonest. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
Ron, what's your site address?
I am particularly drawn to the idea of having "roamed the delusion of words in another (life)." Makes one wonder if he's still doing so 13 centuries later.
Good luck with the NBA . . . I sincerely hope "Fire to Fire" is selected. It richly deserves the award.
I love the word splendid; sounds like desert. Too bad the sugar substitue got ahold of it and dinged it's doors.
The Hinton post I mentioned is the first item on my homepage at www.ronslate.com. Thanks for asking!
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