What do you think?
Rate this book
Finding Them Gone: Visiting China's Poets of the Past
To pay homage to China's greatest poets, renowned translator Bill Porter—who is also known by his Chinese name "Red Pine"—traveled throughout China visiting dozens of poets' graves and performing idiosyncratic rituals that featured Kentucky bourbon and reading poems aloud to the spirits.
Combining travelogue, translations, history, and personal stories, this intimate and fast-paced tour of modern China celebrates inspirational landscapes and presents translations of classical poems, many of which have never before been translated into English.
Porter is a former radio commentator based in Hong Kong who specialized in travelogues. As such, he is an entertaining storyteller who is deeply knowledgeable about Chinese culture, both ancient and modern, who brings readers into the journey—from standing at the edge of the trash pit that used to be Tu Mu's grave to sitting in Han Shan's cave where the Buddhist hermit "Butterfly Woman" serves him tea.
Illustrated with over one hundred photographs and two hundred poems, Finding Them Gone combines the love of travel with an irrepressible exuberance for poetry. As Porter writes: "The graves of the poets I'd been visiting were so different. Some were simple, some palatial, some had been plowed under by farmers, and others had been reduced to trash pits. Their poems, though, had survived... Poetry is transcendent. We carry it in our hearts and find it there when we have forgotten everything else."
Poets’ graves visited (partial list): Li Pai, Tu Fu, Wang Wei, Su Tung-p’o, Hsueh T’ao, Chia Tao, Wei Ying-wu, Shih-wu (Stonehouse), Han-shan (Cold Mountain).
Combining travelogue, translations, history, and personal stories, this intimate and fast-paced tour of modern China celebrates inspirational landscapes and presents translations of classical poems, many of which have never before been translated into English.
Porter is a former radio commentator based in Hong Kong who specialized in travelogues. As such, he is an entertaining storyteller who is deeply knowledgeable about Chinese culture, both ancient and modern, who brings readers into the journey—from standing at the edge of the trash pit that used to be Tu Mu's grave to sitting in Han Shan's cave where the Buddhist hermit "Butterfly Woman" serves him tea.
Illustrated with over one hundred photographs and two hundred poems, Finding Them Gone combines the love of travel with an irrepressible exuberance for poetry. As Porter writes: "The graves of the poets I'd been visiting were so different. Some were simple, some palatial, some had been plowed under by farmers, and others had been reduced to trash pits. Their poems, though, had survived... Poetry is transcendent. We carry it in our hearts and find it there when we have forgotten everything else."
Poets’ graves visited (partial list): Li Pai, Tu Fu, Wang Wei, Su Tung-p’o, Hsueh T’ao, Chia Tao, Wei Ying-wu, Shih-wu (Stonehouse), Han-shan (Cold Mountain).
398 pages, Paperback
First published November 10, 2015
33 people are currently reading
214 people want to read
About the author
Bill Porter
57 books62 followersBill Porter is an American author who translates under the pen-name Red Pine (Chinese: 赤松; pinyin: Chì Sōng). He is a translator and interpreter of Chinese texts, primarily Taoist and Buddhist, including poetry and Sūtras.
He also wrote books about Buddhist hermits(Road to Heaven) and his travels in China(Zen Baggage: A Pilgrimage to China; Yellow River Odyssey).
He also wrote books about Buddhist hermits(Road to Heaven) and his travels in China(Zen Baggage: A Pilgrimage to China; Yellow River Odyssey).
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
November 2, 2019
The premise is simple, the results are brilliant. Bill Porter (aka Red Pine), with nothing better to do, takes a thirty day trip from Beijing through western China and back east again. From Qufu and Mt. Taishan, he follows the Yellow River to Kaifeng, Zhengzhou, Luoyang and Xian, through the Qin mountains to western Sichuan. At Chongqing, he traces the Yangtze River through Wanzhou, the Three Gorges, Yichang, Lake Dongting, Wuhan, Lake Poyang , Nanjing, Suzhou, to the Huangshan mountains and Hanzhou.
Along the way Bill visits places that past poets dwelled, from Confucius to Laotze, Li Bai, Tu Fu and Wang Wei, Cold Mountain (Hanshan), Stonehouse (Shiwu) and many others in between. A translator of these poets and old China hand, he's an expert guide to the history and culture of the places visited. This is no dry and dusty literary exercise, and he hasn't lost his sense of humor or adventure either. The gelatinous donkey hide appetizer served by the new bullet train leads him to a beautiful bathroom on board.
Bill treats us to a wealth of information about ancient and modern doings. We learn about his escape from food stamps through his writing, and of his many Chinese readers. He encounters the ghosts of China's past in the words of poets written two millennia ago. Published in 2016, the trip is much more recent than his prior travelogues. It reflects China's race to development underway. Easily blending past with present, it is an entertaining and edifying experience that ranks right up there with the best of Bill Porter.
Along the way Bill visits places that past poets dwelled, from Confucius to Laotze, Li Bai, Tu Fu and Wang Wei, Cold Mountain (Hanshan), Stonehouse (Shiwu) and many others in between. A translator of these poets and old China hand, he's an expert guide to the history and culture of the places visited. This is no dry and dusty literary exercise, and he hasn't lost his sense of humor or adventure either. The gelatinous donkey hide appetizer served by the new bullet train leads him to a beautiful bathroom on board.
Bill treats us to a wealth of information about ancient and modern doings. We learn about his escape from food stamps through his writing, and of his many Chinese readers. He encounters the ghosts of China's past in the words of poets written two millennia ago. Published in 2016, the trip is much more recent than his prior travelogues. It reflects China's race to development underway. Easily blending past with present, it is an entertaining and edifying experience that ranks right up there with the best of Bill Porter.
February 14, 2016
This book is a hybrid – travel and translation and biography – as Bill Porter takes the reader on a trip around China – by train, taxi, bus and foot – visiting sites linked to famous Chinese poets. The narrative is sprinkled with biographical fragments (his and theirs), descriptions of landscapes and cityscapes and incidental encounters, offerings of bourbon and translations of poetry.
The book is long and the number of poets named and honoured is perhaps too many – more about less might have been more satisfying for the reader – but the selection is Porter's prerogative. These are his favourite poets and he is entitled to visit and honour them all.
Porter's style is smooth, although at times a little too focused on shrugging and banging and leaving breadcrumbs for the next pilgrim to follow. His translations are simple and direct. The photographs throughout the book are his – black and white and plain. Helpful.
Two themes stand out.
First, rootlessness. Many of the poets he visits traveled widely, either voluntarily or in response to the banished/recalled cycle that formed a key part of the lives of bureaucrats in China a thousand years ago. They may have eventually settled in one place but it often took a lifetime to get there.
Second, the bifurcated heart. Many of these poets wanted to contribute to their society, usually as government officials. They wrote the exams. They served in posts. They were honest, earnest and banished. At the same time, they longed for spiritual development. They lived in huts on mountainsides (when banished or retired) and wrote poems and hiked and droned. They drank too much. And they hoped for more. Until they accepted that less was more than enough.
It is the combination of biography and poetry that makes this book so satisfying. The lives are placed in locations – and that is good. And Porter keeps himself in the picture – but not distractingly so. In his journey across the country a number of poets appear and re-appear which helps bring both weight and colour to the narrative. Some poets are mentioned only once (or twice) and fade quickly. But others keep finding their way back into the picture. In their lives they traveled. And Porter's road trip helps bring this fact home.
Fans of Bill Porter will be pleased to have this new book to add to their collection. Road to Heaven is probably his best known (and perhaps best) book to date. Finding Them Gone may not displace Road to Heaven. But it stands comfortably beside it.
The book is long and the number of poets named and honoured is perhaps too many – more about less might have been more satisfying for the reader – but the selection is Porter's prerogative. These are his favourite poets and he is entitled to visit and honour them all.
Porter's style is smooth, although at times a little too focused on shrugging and banging and leaving breadcrumbs for the next pilgrim to follow. His translations are simple and direct. The photographs throughout the book are his – black and white and plain. Helpful.
Two themes stand out.
First, rootlessness. Many of the poets he visits traveled widely, either voluntarily or in response to the banished/recalled cycle that formed a key part of the lives of bureaucrats in China a thousand years ago. They may have eventually settled in one place but it often took a lifetime to get there.
Second, the bifurcated heart. Many of these poets wanted to contribute to their society, usually as government officials. They wrote the exams. They served in posts. They were honest, earnest and banished. At the same time, they longed for spiritual development. They lived in huts on mountainsides (when banished or retired) and wrote poems and hiked and droned. They drank too much. And they hoped for more. Until they accepted that less was more than enough.
It is the combination of biography and poetry that makes this book so satisfying. The lives are placed in locations – and that is good. And Porter keeps himself in the picture – but not distractingly so. In his journey across the country a number of poets appear and re-appear which helps bring both weight and colour to the narrative. Some poets are mentioned only once (or twice) and fade quickly. But others keep finding their way back into the picture. In their lives they traveled. And Porter's road trip helps bring this fact home.
Fans of Bill Porter will be pleased to have this new book to add to their collection. Road to Heaven is probably his best known (and perhaps best) book to date. Finding Them Gone may not displace Road to Heaven. But it stands comfortably beside it.
September 5, 2020
This book was hard work for me. For the 2017 Read Harder challenge I was looking for an anthology of poetry in translation that was not about love. I picked this book because it offered a selection of Chinese poems with some comments about each author's historical or geographical context.
What I liked about the book was getting a sampling of Chinese poetry. I learned that poetry was a skill required of aspiring bureaucrats, and many bureacrats were banished to far off provinces. So, they wrote often about life apart from the people and places that they loved. This was interesting to me as an expat. They also had a long tradition of bucolic poetry and many lived for a period as hermits.
However, the main story line of the book was a 29 day road trip where Red Pine visits the graves or former homes of each poet and pours a glass of whiskey in their honor. He included enough information about the logistical details of getting to each grave that a determined reader could retrace his steps. This got very repetitive and was quite dry reading.
As someone who is totally unfamiliar with Chinese culture, I would have appreciated two sentences at the beginning explaining that visiting graves and pouring an offering of spirits is something traditional in China. I had to figure that out from context 3/4 of the way through the book. It also would have been interesting to hear more about the author's reasons for making the journey or his connection to these poets or places. Only the description of the very last author and day had more than a hint of personal connection for the author / translator.
What I liked about the book was getting a sampling of Chinese poetry. I learned that poetry was a skill required of aspiring bureaucrats, and many bureacrats were banished to far off provinces. So, they wrote often about life apart from the people and places that they loved. This was interesting to me as an expat. They also had a long tradition of bucolic poetry and many lived for a period as hermits.
However, the main story line of the book was a 29 day road trip where Red Pine visits the graves or former homes of each poet and pours a glass of whiskey in their honor. He included enough information about the logistical details of getting to each grave that a determined reader could retrace his steps. This got very repetitive and was quite dry reading.
As someone who is totally unfamiliar with Chinese culture, I would have appreciated two sentences at the beginning explaining that visiting graves and pouring an offering of spirits is something traditional in China. I had to figure that out from context 3/4 of the way through the book. It also would have been interesting to hear more about the author's reasons for making the journey or his connection to these poets or places. Only the description of the very last author and day had more than a hint of personal connection for the author / translator.
November 19, 2020
A travelogue, an anthology of ancient Chinese poetry, a commentary on ancient (& modern) Chinese culture, a marvelously charming good-read. I know I will turn to sections again as I read the poets. It could be a semester-long course on Chinese literature & culture. I felt like I was traveling with Red Pine/Bill Porter & with the poets that he wrote about. If you have any interest at all in Chinese poetry, read it -- hell, if you have any interest at all in poetry & history, read it.
December 12, 2023
A charming book about a Western man who speaks Chinese going around China looking for the graves of Classical Chinese Poets. Usually he finds them. The sites range from grand monuments with museums all the way to a trash-filled hole in the ground. He even wanders into some sensitive military areas! Whenever he finds the final resting place of one of these famous poets, he reads one of their poems and pours them a shot of whiskey to warm them in the afterlife.
November 7, 2023
Bill Porter gives us a beautiful homage to the poets of ancient China, poets that influence and inspire us even today. I thoroughly enjoyed going along for the ride as Porter traveled through both past and present day China seeking traces of the old hermits, monks, and other notable figures. I suggest you pick up a copy and settle into your reading chair for a while.
June 6, 2019
A pilgrimage to sites associated with China's great poets. A practically-minded travelogue studded with delightful poems. Bless Porter for including the Chinese originals as well as his translations. The tone isn't lyrical, but the journey grows on you. Clearly a labor of love.
Read
November 9, 2021Too diffuse; may go back to it another time.
May 22, 2016
This is one of the best books I've read all year. It honors the Chinese poets of antiquity with great care and humbleness. The history is amazing, and Bill Porter's (Red Pine's) translations throughout the text are enlightened.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews