قصائد

by Mao Zedong, جورج جرداق (المترجم:)

Mao Zedong (1893–1976), 1st Chairman of the Communist Party of China & leader of the People's Republic of China for nearly 30 years, wrote poetry, starting in the 1920s, during the Red Army's epic retreat during the Long March of 1934-36 & after coming to power in 1949. Mao's poems are in the classical Chinese verse style, rather than the newer Modern Chinese poetry style. Tho Mao may not be one of the best Chinese poets, his poems are generally considered well-written & of high literary quality. As did most Chinese intellectuals of his generation, Mao received rigorous education in Chinese classical literature. Thus his skill in poetry is of little surprise. His style was deeply influenced by the "Three Lis" of the Tang Dynasty: poets Li Bai, Li Shangyin & Li He. He's considered to be a romantic poet, in contrast to the realist poets represented by Du Fu. Many of Mao's poems are frequently quoted in popular culture, literature & daily conversations. Some of well-known poems are "Changsha" (1925), "The Double Ninth" (1929.10), "Loushan Pass" (1935), "The Long March" (1935), "Snow" (1936.02), "The PLA Captures Nanjing" (1949.04), "Reply to Li Shuyi" (1957.05.11) & "Ode to the Plum Blossom" (1961.12).

Genres: Poetry, China, Fiction, Asia, War, Chinese Literature

124 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1958

About the author

Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung, and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, statesman and leader of the Chinese Revolution. He was the architect and founding father of the People's Republic of China (PRC) from its establishment in 1949, and held control over the nation until his death in 1976. His theoretical contribution to Marxism–Leninism, along with his military strategies and brand of policies, are collectively known as Maoism.

Mao rose to power by commanding the Long March, forming a Second United Front with Kuomintang (KMT) during the Second Sino-Japanese War to repel a Japanese invasion, and later led the Communist Party of China (CPC) to victory against Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek's KMT in the Chinese Civil War. Mao established political and military control over most of the territory formerly contained within the Chinese Empire and launched a campaign to suppress counterrevolutionaries. He sent the Communist People's Liberation Army into Xinjiang and Tibet but was unable to oust the remnants of the Nationalist Party from Taiwan. He enacted sweeping land reform by using violence and terror to overthrow landlords before seizing their large estates and dividing the land into people's communes. The Communist Party's final victory came after decades of turmoil in China, which included the Great Depression, a brutal invasion by Japan and a protracted civil war. Mao's Communist Party ultimately achieved a measure of stability in China, though Mao's efforts to close China to trade and market commerce, and eradicate traditional Chinese culture, have been largely rejected by his successors.

Mao styled himself "The Great Helmsman" and supporters continue to contend that he was responsible for some positive changes which came to China during his three decade rule. These included doubling the school population, providing universal housing, abolishing unemployment and inflation, increasing health care access, and dramatically raising life expectancy. A cult of personality grew up around Mao, and community dissent was not permitted. His Communist Party still rules in mainland China, retains control of media and education there and officially celebrates his legacy. As a result, Mao is still officially held in high regard by many Chinese as a great political strategist, military mastermind, and savior of the nation. Maoists promote his role as a theorist, statesman, poet, and visionary, and anti-revisionists continue to defend most of his policies.

Reviews

[KamRun · Rating 2 out of 5]

اشعار مائو در مجموعه دوجلدی آثارش که نشر فردوس چاپ کرده غایبه (یا از چشم من پنهان مونده). از این جهت این مجموعه کوچک بلافاصله پس از اینکه به چشمم خورد نظرم رو جلب کرد. اشعار عموما حماسی و مناسبتی‌اند و فهم مضمون اکثر اشعار نیازمند تسلط کامل بر تاریخ چینه (حتی مکان نبردها). ولی بهرحال از گرفتنش پشیمون نیستم
اما در خصوص نسخه فارسی کذایی. من پیش‌تر ترجمه دیگه‌ای از منوچهر بصیر خونده بودم: گزیده "اشعار هو‌شی‌مینه." موضوعی که در هر دو مجموعه نظرم رو جلب کرد، دقت توام با بی‌سلیقگی و عدم ظرافت مترجم بود. کتاب دو‌زبانه‌ست و می‌شه دقت ترجمه رو براحتی سنجید، ولی - حتی با درنظر گرفتن افت طبیعیِ در روند ترجمه شعر از زبان اصلی - باز هم عدم بکار بردن ظرافت توسط مترجم، حسابی توی ذوق می‌زنه

در گوشه‌ای متروک، کنار پلی مخروب
گلی می‌شکفد؛
از گزند باد و بارانش در امان نیست
تنها و غمگین، در غروب آفتاب.
بگذار دیگر گل‌ها بر او رشک برند
او بهار را تنها از آن خویشتن نمی‌خواهد
چه بسا گلبرگ‌های او در گِل فرو روند
اما عطر او همه‌جا پراکنده خواهد شد

[Caleb Loh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mao Zedong's poetry is actually quite interesting, and uses a classical Chinese style. Initially, in his youth, he was absorbed by nature, but by the time he came of age (around the late 1920s to early 1930s), he wrote more about oppression, revolution, and the glory of the Communist military. Many of his poems would take the form of an elegy for a fallen Marxist revolutionary, or directed as a response to a specific colleague. In the 1960s, he returned a little more to his Romantic roots, though there were still many ideological poems.

The line "不到长城非好汉" comes from one of Mao's poems, written to his subordinates during the Long March to induce them to press on. In his ideological phase, the 红旗 is his favourite motif. In one of the better poems, he says that the true heroes of Chinese history are not emperors of the past, but rather those revolutionaries alive today ("数风流人物，还看今朝").

Some of the translations are not great. For instance, there is one early poem where Mao is sending off a friend to Japan. He writes that "丈夫何事足萦怀，要将宇宙看稊米", translated as "For nothing burdening his mind a man should sigh / But see the world as if it were a grain of sand". Other than being grammatically clunky, the word "sand" does not quite describe "稊米". Mao is recommending that one sees large problems as minute, and the choice of the rural image of rice reinforces that much more clearly than sand, especially given his provincial upbringing in Hunan. The current translation is a bit too reminiscent of William Blake's lines: "To see a World in a Grain of Sand / And a Heaven in a Wild Flower / Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand".

There's one pretty clever translation. Mao believed that women had a permanent place in the revolution, which is funny enough since whether women should serve NS has come into the spotlight. Mao writes that "中华儿女多奇志，不爱红装爱武装", which literally means that Chinese women have so strong a desire to defend the motherland that they prefer wearing battle fatigues over red dresses. The English translation is "Most Chinese daughters have desire so strong / To face the powder, not powder the face".

[Tariq Alferis · Rating 3 out of 5]

.لاثورة بغير قصائد شعر هكذا قالها الرفيق ماو تسي تونغ عندما كان يقود العُمال والشعب ( الجيش الأحمر) نحو الحُرية….
.


.الشعاب ضيقة ، والغابات سحيقة ، والطحالب زلقة.


الى اين سنذهب اليوم ؟

رأسا الى قدم جبال فويي.

الى الجبال ، قدم الجبال.

والرايات الحمر سوف تنتشر مثل الدرج.
.

.
كان ماو تسي تونغ يكتب قصائده أثناء الحرب الأهلية، وكُل قصيدة لها معنى وقصة وبفضل المُترجم جورج جرداق فهمت بعض من قصائده، في الأغلب قصائده غير مفهومة ، لكن في النهاية ..يكفيني أن صاحب القصائد ماو تسي تونغ..

[Shane · Rating 2 out of 5]

The version I found (in a second hand bookshop) is a version printed as a gift for diplomats by the Chinese government. It's a beautiful book with a facsimile of a poem in Mao's handwriting. Unfortunately the beauty of the poems themselves are lost in translation as Chinese poetry is so different from what us English speakers are used to.

[Steven Peterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an odd little book. It begins with a brief biography of Mao, tracing the arc of his life. But the center of it is his poetry. I am no expert on Mao's poetry, but the editor of this volume observes (Page 21): "It is unexpected, however, that [Mao:] is a major poet." And that is what makes this old work intriguing to me. There are many aspects of Mao--from revolutionary to taker of so many lives. But poet was not a role I had considered until I ran across this work decades ago.

Some quick selections from some of the poems.

"Warlords"

Wind and clouds suddently rip the sky
and warlords clash.
War again.
Rancor rains down on men who dream of a Pillow
of Yellow Barley. . . .

"Swimming"

After swallowing some water at Changsha
I taste a Wuchang fish in the surf
and swim across the Yangtze River that winds
ten thousand li.
I see the entire Chu sky.
Wind batters me, waves hit me--I don't care. . . ."

Some illustrations. . . .

Anyhow, if interested in Mao's poetry, this is an accessible work.

[M David Mo · Rating 1 out of 5]

La peor poesía china que he leído jamás, esperaba poco y aún así me ha decepcionado.
Poemas monotema, aburridos y cargantes.
Se queda en mi estantería como curiosidad histórica más que como obra literaria.
Lo siento mucho Winnie the Pooh

[Fin · Rating 3 out of 5]

SWIMMING (1956)
I have just drunk the waters of Changsha
And come to eat the fish of Wuchang.
Now I am swimming across the great Yangtze,
Looking afar to the open sky of Chu.
Let the wind blow and waves beat,
Better far than idly strolling in a courtyard.
Today I am at ease.
"It was by a stream that the Master said--
'Thus do things flow away!' "

Sails move with the wind.
Tortoise and Snake are still.
Great plans are afoot:
A bridge will fly to span the north and south,
Turning a deep chasm into a thoroughfare;
Walls of stone will stand upstream to the west
To hold back Wushan's clouds and rain
Till a smooth lake rises in the narrow gorges.
The mountain goddess if she is still there
Will marvel at a world so changed.

My edition, apparently an original edition from the 70s, was bought in Shanghai's Propaganda Museum (an amazing place). Not really equipped to judge this - some nice imagery but didn't feel nearly as moved as when reading some of the other Chinese poets who he takes as models (Li Bai, Li Shangyin etc). Not sure this Mao guy has that much going for him in literature, maybe he should consider a career change to something more practical??

[Therese L. Broderick]

I found these 36 short poems (translated by Willis Barnstone and Ko Ching-Po) to be quite alluring when--mercifully--taken out of their historical context. The personal and national circumstances that impelled Mao Tse-Tung to write these poems were, on the other hand, tremendously harrowing and tragic. The supreme irony of Mao's vocation as a dedicated, life-long poet is that "his poems are in the old style and he does not recommend them to the young, who must find their own way" (page 24). It seems that Mao's convictions about political and social revolution would not allow for classical Chinese formal poetry to be taught in a radically reformed educational system, even though he wrote in that very same conservative tradition.

[Litfahan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Introduction includes a brief biography of Mao until the end of the Civil War, which helps you get some more out of the poems. This review isn't very objective, since I'm not very familiar with the intricacies of Mao's life or of the Chinese poetic tradition, both of which seem important in understanding his work here. Still, Barnstone is right that imagery translates well; there's lots of it and it's nice.

[Nathan Kruse · Rating 3 out of 5]

pretty words and images, and the history at the beginning (esp. the history of Mao's poetry) was interesting to hear

but between the translation and the Chinese mythology/history that i didn't understand, i felt like i was missing too much to appreciate a lot of it

some of the poems were very cool, especially in his correspondences with friends

[Steve Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of three dozen of Mao’s poems with a useful overview of poetic styles relevant to the works. The editor provides a brief biography of Mao along with the historical events impacting the composition of the poems.

[Julia Hannafin · Rating 4 out of 5]

i liked a poetic peek into several key moments in mao’s earlier years as a revolutionary. there is clarity and there is spirit! definitely worth reading the notes on the translation because chinese characters hold much more than an english phrase does.

[Dani · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maon runous on kaukana siitä mitä odottaisi: klassista ja tyylipuhdasta. Kiinan menneisyyden tiivistämisessä hän on parhaimmillaan, mutta luontokuvauksissa aiemmat mestarit pesevät Maon tyylin. Moderneissa viritelmissä taasen Lu Xun on kiinnostavampi tapaus.

[Mahdi · Rating 3 out of 5]

don't know how i ended up reading this but they're not bad lol

[sopipepitingas · Rating 4 out of 5]

mucha oda a la montaña y al cielo <3

[Mads Floyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Regardless of the man he would become, there is something beautiful in seeing a man - any man - overcome the world to achieve his goals.

[hr arch · Rating 1 out of 5]

Maybe something was lost in translation, but this is just.... Not for me.

[Jeff · Rating 1 out of 5]

"Poetry of Mao" by Mao Tse Tung, 1976. Printed in the People's Republic of China, in the year of Mao's death, this exquisitely presented book includes Chairman Mao's original poetry and calligraphy. It appears that his writing does not translate well into English, or perhaps very possibly, that Mao had little talent for writing to begin with. In 1958 on the eve of "The Great leap forward", Mao visits the remote, rural village of his youth and writes poetry of 'rice paddies and beans', connoting a bountiful, richness of his homeland. The following year, in an attempt to quench his obsession for gaining military technology, Mao exports grain to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Forty million Chinese die from starvation. Although, the philosophy of 'the end by any means' is common place among totalitarian regimes, Chinese today seem to suffer from a kind of historical amnesia, portraying the hero like portrait of Mao everywhere from colossal banners in Tiananmen Square to the five, ten and twenty yuan bank notes. Apparently the mass carnage and repression of Mao's reign is excepted as justifiable in the context of economic advancement. Despite the poor quality of writing, it is intriguing, and I might add somewhat disconcerting, to be able to read the poetry of a mass murderer.

[Mr Siegal · Rating 2 out of 5]

Heavy Metal is the Law...

I found this book lying around in a friends place and asked if I could have it. So here I am today. I must say that I am completely useless when it comes to poetry. I simply do not know how to rate it. However, I did not find that the poems “spoke” to me in any way, nor did I find them particularly good.

That being said, the book shows an overview of Mao’s life, from the bombastic youth to a more reclusive old man. The first poems could easily be lyrics of epic metal bands like Manowar, with talks of a thousand soldiers standing strong, waiving red flags and defeating enemies. The later poems are more mellow in tone, yet do feature the same ruthlessness, with lines such as “away with all pests” pg.47.

My favourite poem was entitled “Shaoshan Revisited” pg.36.

[Irina Borges · Rating 3 out of 5]

A guerra, a revolução e a mudança social, representadas através de visões de cataclismos, desastres naturais e imagens trágicas e grandiosas, são característica que se repetem ao longo da poesia de Mao.
Sou honestamente incapaz de formular uma opinião justa e coerente, na medida em que devido à tradução, surge uma dificuldade de análise da poesia estrangeira.
Se já é complicado entre línguas de grande correspondência fonética, léxica e sintáctica (como português, espanhol, francês e italiano) imagine-se o caso do chinês clássico (monossilábico, sem flexões nem distinções morfológicas).
Embora o tradutor tenha procurado ser fiel à ideia poética do autor, seguindo o verso livre, creio que a essência se perde inevitavelmente.

[Nativeabuse · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great little collection of poetry, but I was a bit disappointed that his poetry is so generic.

There is almost no poetry talking about war or revolution or communism, which is what I was looking for. What his poetry consists of is talking about birds, mountains, lakes, rivers, rain, earth, mist, wildlife, scenery. Mix and match with lots of flowery adjectives.

Good for what it is, flowery poetry about nature, but if you are interested in that just read some Walt Whitman or something. I wouldn't bother with this.

[Ian Hamilton · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked this one up from the "book exchange" in my building's laundry room on aesthetics alone. The version is a nice, first-printing copy with the poetry in English and seemingly everything else in Chinese. Mao's poetry is pretty mediocre; he attempts to characterize the revolution using metaphors invoking the Chinese landscape and people, and for the most part the approach doesn't seem to really work. I would only give this a single star, if not for a handful of memorable pieces. Short read, but still probably not worth your time.

[Stefano · Rating 2 out of 5]

Il maestro, quando giunse al fiume, disse: "Tutto procede, come quest'acqua!"

Altro che il cadavere del tuo nemico! Confucio non ha mai parlato di un cadavere (il detto "aspetto sulla riva che passi il cadavere del mio nemico" parrebbe un'interpretazione tutta occidentale).

Un saggio, a metà tra storia e poesia, per capire come l'occidente travisa l'oriente, e come il Cinese è una lingua che ben si presta a parlare di filosofia.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the works of Mao Tse-Tung, but his poems are very hard to follow. I'm not sure if this is attributed to the Chinese/English translation, but some of the wording is archaic and rudimentary even for early twentieth century political theorists. Still, most people can finish this book in less than thirty minutes. I do recommend it!

[Del Mar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decidí releer este libro porque creo que no le había prestado mucha atención. Sin importar quién fue y qué hizo los poemas de Mao son prueba de su intelecto, legitima y promueve por medio de letras su causa. Leí la versión española de Délano y el librito es fisicamente bonitoy con algunas ilustraciones interesantes.

[Jeanna · Rating 2 out of 5]

A very “MEH” read. Nationalistic propaganda all through and through, sparse in vocabulary and not a very interesting take on the revolution. Describes the Chinese landscapes and important historical events in either the most bland or overly exaggerated ways possible.

I guess Mao neither outdid himself as a poet, nor as a great leader.

[Hyeyeongie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most Chinese daughters have desire so strong,
To face the powder not powder the face
-Mao Ze Dong

Disclaimer: Not a member of CCP

As a country that has been invaded & colonised, it’s easy to indulge yourself with these beautifully written, nationalists-provoking poems

Bonus that this book has illustrations for each poetry!

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a poet, an imitative hack. But one would not dare say so in China.

[Ingrid]

Mentioned in the 1Q84 murakami's book.

[Radia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lost in translation, I guess?
I really liked the handwritten ones though