Five T'Ang Poets

by David Young (Translator), Wang Wei (Contributor), Li Bai (Contributor)

The selections from these five poets constitute some of the greatest lyric poetry ever written. Each poet is introduced by the translator, David Young, and represented by a selection that spans the poet's development and career.

Genres: Poetry, China, Classics, Literature, Fiction, Anthologies, Historical

184 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 859

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

David Pollock Young was an American poet, translator, editor, literary critic and professor. His work includes 11 volumes of poetry, translations from Italian, Chinese, German, Czech, Dutch, and Spanish, critical work on Shakespeare, Yeats, and modernist poets, and landmark anthologies of prose poetry and magical realism. He co-founded and edited the magazine FIELD: Contemporary Poetry and Poetics for its 50 years of publication. Young was Longman Professor Emeritus of English at Oberlin College, and was the recipient of awards including NEA and Guggenheim fellowships.

Reviews

[d]

"Todo lo que amas de la literatura japonesa es en realidad chino"... ¿Cuántos años me llevará entender lo que él dijo al pasar?
Vengan aquí, lectores de Murasaki, Kawabata, Yosano... y tal vez la última: Kawakami. Vengan y lean a estos poetas que escribieron hace 1300 años y que también son cercanos hoy.
Edición muy amable y comentada de poemas clásicos, algunos ya leídos en otras antologías y con los cuales me sorprendo y soy feliz cada vez.


WALKING IN MOUNTAINS IN THE RAIN (Wang Wei)

In this quick cloudburst
air thickens, the sky comes down

dark mountains
flashes of lightning

out at sea new clouds
have just started to form
and this small brook I straddle
is a river in flood somewhere

rags and blankets of mist
hang on these slopes and cliffs

then the clouds open and vanish
rain patters off
and moonlight silvers
that whole reach of river
foothills to ocean

and even from this black mountain
I can hear boatmen singing.



WAKING UP DRUNK ON A SPRING DAY (Li Po)

Life is a huge dream
why work so hard?

all day long I drink
lying outside the front door

awakening
looking up through the trees
in the garden

and one bird singing in the flowers

bird, what season is this?
"Spring! I'm a mango bird
and the spring wind makes me sing."

now I grow sad
very sad

so I have some more wine
and I sing
out loud
until the bright moon
rises

what was I upset about?
I can't remember



MAGIC STRINGS I (Li Ho)

The sun slips down
behind the western mountains
hills to the east vanish
the wind is driving horses through the clouds

the painted lute
and reed flute
play soft
rapid notes

a brocade skirt
rustles through
October dust

breeze flutters the cassia leaves
seeds fall

a blue fox
weeps blood
for her dead mate

riding the golden-tailed
dragons painted on ancient
walls, the rain god leaps
into the pools of autumn

a hundred year old owl
changes into
a forest demon

laughter!
green fire in the nest!

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

I sit with my wine jar
among flowers
blossoming trees

no one to drink with

well, there's the moon
-Li Po

[J.M. Hushour · Rating 5 out of 5]

As has been well-established, I don't review poetry, I just tell you to read it.
You should read this, Young's translations, which he explains in a nice introduction, come across as healthy and hale and redolent of the original sense. If you're into this, you'll know the poets featured here quite well, but with a lesser-regaled addition (Li Shang-Yin).

[Creighton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another bookful of cool wet moonlight.

[Mark Hartzer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some poems were very moving. Hard to believe these were all written over a thousand years ago.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

This selection from the work of some of the greatest Chinese poets both helped introduce me to this grand tradition and gave me a set of general principals for poetry translations. It certainly helped the development of my own style and voice, and underlined the importance of community to the art and well-being of the individual poet.

And did i mention the quality of these poems? David Young, the translator, has done a remarkable job with his material.

[David Anthony Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poetry is that which cannot be translated, especially when going from Chinese to English. Still, Young does a fine job of suggesting the poetry of the originals and this is well worth reading, especially if you like Imagist poetry.

[Dayna Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent representation of five famous Chinese poets: Wang Wei, Li Po, Tu Fu, Li Ho, Li Shang-Yin. None of these poets specialize in haiku, this is real Chinese poetry beautifully translated. A wonderful introduction to these five great artists.

[Matt Brandel · Rating 4 out of 5]

These make me want to live in the woods, drink wine, and write poems.

You ask why I live
in these green mountains

I smile
can't answer

I am completely at peace

a peach blossom
sails past
on the current

there are worlds
beyond this one

[Mesoscope · Rating 5 out of 5]

An assortment of poems from the T'ang dynasty, including verse from Tu Fu and Li Ho, two of the most celebrated poets in Chinese history. These translations are among the most beautiful and deeply-felt translations from Chinese that I've ever read, and this slender volume makes a superb introduction or digression into one of the great golden ages of literature the world has known. Very highly recommended.

[Miles McCoy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some of the most eloquent, moving, and beautiful poetry I've ever read.

[Caitlin White · Rating 5 out of 5]

stunning. a savior of a book.

[Marc Mannheimer · Rating 5 out of 5]

The translator of these five Chinese poets from the Tang dynasty period writes about the act of translation in his intro. It seems to be an inexact art, with much left to the translators imagination. That said, I want to give props firstly to David Young, translator. However accurate or inaccurate these works are, they are nothing but stunning. Sadness and appreciation are chief among the sentiments conveyed, and this is done beautifully.

[Allison · Rating 3 out of 5]

I should preface my review by admitting I'm not at all familiar with other translations of these poets. That being said, in general, I found myself in-want reading through Young's translations of these Chinese poets. Ancient Chinese poetry is rather new to me, and for that reason, I really appreciated Young's pretty in-depth introduction to each poet, and to the collection as a whole. Admittedly a very difficult feat, often the translations felt lacking, bent toward a more contemporary diction (several word choices throughout the book struck me as wholly odd). As he admitted, I thought the author took liberties, and it was obvious to me and, in places, displeasing. I'm not sure this genre of poetry appeals to my sensibilities, at no fault to Young, but this book did stir up an interest up delve into other translations of these poets and to study a little more extensively the syntax and structure of Chinese poetry (like the jueju).

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every now and then one discovers something entirely new to himself that resonates, e.g., a work of music, an author, etc. This book of ancient Chinese poetry was such a find for me.

The poems of Wang Wei, Li Po, and Tu Fu, in particular, resonated with my love of nature. I think they were particularly poignant in view of the fact that I am currently reading an anthrology of American environmental writings; Wang Wei, although writing around 700 C.E. would have fit into this anthology well. He might well have been the first environmentalist.

This poetry is about simple everyday occurrences in life that I think most people today can respond to. The poems are short vignettes that one can spend a pleasant afternoon thinking about, and relating to, the emotions expressed.

Great find! If you like the poetry of Robert Frost you will love these.

[Will Cowen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unfortunately the author ends with the weaker poets, in my estimation, or perhaps they are excellent in the Chinese but not really accessible in translation. Of course, this is very subjective, and for others this might be a very appropriate or exciting way to end this volume. For me it was a bit of a let down.

[GiGi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyable collection. The poems on their own are powerful, touching, and hauntingly beautiful. As an added bonus, the author's introductions allow for greater understanding and offer a lot of helpful insight into each poet's work.

[Felonious Punk · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the poem by Li Po "Conversation among mountains", and have read it by at least 4 other renowned translators, but this is my favorite!!! Clear, unadorned, unembellished, and so it is refreshingly spiritual. Can't wait to read more.

[Donovan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lovely poems, but I don't know that they qualify as translations. Taken on their own terms, it's well worth reading, but as translations, they're quite dissatisfying.

In the introduction, Young offers a confusing, unconvincing defense: "the absence in Chinese of all that connective tissue of articles and prepositions makes the original grid airy and light, while its twin in English becomes musclebound and solemn." Why assume it's airy in the original? Why would it produce a distinctive effect of lightness using a grammatical characteristic that applies to every expression in the language? This is the translator's projection: only in contrast to his native English need the original appear that way.

Even assuming the premise is right, here's his solution: "to admit an English line is a different kind of unit and to treat the Chinese line like a stanza, breaking it up into smaller units of two or three lines." A poem is still a concrete object: its visual form is part of its content and its effect, and its rhythm is arguably as integral as its content. True, slavish imitation of the original form won't reproduce the original effect. But Young does not solve the problem by forcing the original's tight, compact, uniform lines into separate stanzas of an arbitrary number of lines. Adding lines, adding words, adding stanzas, and adding arbitrariness does not restore airiness and lightness.

Consider an example. Here's a fairly literal translation of Li Po's "Autumn Air":

The autumn wind is clear.
The autumn moon is bright.
The fall leaves gather and scatter.
A raven perches, then suddenly takes off again.
We think of each other, will we ever see each other again?
This hour, this night, my feelings are hard.

The characters per line repeat and grow: 3, 3, 5, 5, 7, 7. The structure emphasizes the development of the poem's theme from simple sadness to longing, then stubborn endurance, as well the development of its point of view from detached description to emotionally laden metaphors of seasonal cycles, making more striking the sudden shift to emotional coldness and stasis. That effect isn't achieved only by the increasing length and pace of the lines, but the contrast to the internal uniformity of the pairs. In English, this might look like:

clear fall wind,
bright fall moon.
autumn leaves gather, then scatter.
a raven perches, but breaks away.
we think of each other: will we meet again?
the hour grows longer, my heart grows harder.

Young's version is just not the same poem by any measure: not the same mood, not the same music, not the same effect, not the same content even:

Clean fall wind
clear fall moon

leaves heaped by the wind
leaves scattered

a cold raven
flaps slowly
from his roost

thoughts of you
fill my head

will I ever
see you again?

the ache
around my heart
gets bigger

Let's leave aside the tedious long-windedness. (Imagine being Li Po in the moment of the poem. Doesn't it, despite the emotional complexity, feel like a fleeting sentiment? As if he felt at one and the same time the initial cold detachment, the subsequent longing, and its harsh refusal?)

Why remove the brightness? That is the cold objective light and harsh contrast that emphasizes the poet's emotional solitude, foreshadows his eventual rejection of his emotional state, his approaching winter.

Why replace it with clean? The symmetry that matters is rhythmic: a progression of time and mood. The alliteration of "clean" and "clear" and the repetition of "leaves" are totally out of place. The initial impression is one of detached, neutral description, which this musical, value-laden metaphor of hygiene destroys.

"A cold raven flaps slowly"? "Cold raven" is just awful--it sounds like a recipe. And the original uses the word "startle" to mean "take start." Again, foreshadowing the movement of the poem from static, to seasonal, to suddenly static again. The raven initially appears to settle in for winter, like the poet waits for his feelings to pass, only to become unsettled again.

And what poet in his right mind would accidentally evoke the silly image and sound of a rooster with the word "roost" here? Note, too, the original's symmetry between the leaves that unite only to disperse and the bird that arrives only to depart. This suggests a comfortingly natural cycle of life and death--one the poet was expecting, one that fails him.

"thoughts of you fill my head": the original presents this as reciprocal: each thinks of the other, or at least the poet wonders if this may be. It's that possibility that perturbs him, initiating the poem's twist. The poem isn't solipsistic, the poet suffers from his inability to willfully be so, recalling her thoughts, her wondering, as well as his own.

The translation of the final line is a disaster. The entire poem is about time, and the final line is about killing it. But Young removes it altogether. The original even mentions it twice: "this hour, this night." And indirectly evoking the word "heartache" is not only painfully saccharine, but completely misses the point: he is shutting it down. He is preventing longing from turning into ache. He has brought winter early.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

This re-iinspired a love of poetry in me. I cannot praise these poets too hightly!

[Marc · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid intro. Great heart.

[Charles Source · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a sort of ‘classic’ in the field of translated Chinese poetry, from what I gather. And some of the poems really seem to capture the stillness and natural purity, along with images of war and separation, of the time. In the Preface, the translator, David Young, explains that he wanted to make a book of ancient Chinese poems that reads like poetry in English (as opposed to the more scholarly translations prevalent in his time), and I’d say he largely succeeds.

The poems are light, airy and mysterious, and they’re easy to read and put vivid images in your mind while leaving you surprised by the profound emotions they express. I found myself especially entranced by the work of Wang Wei and Li Po. The former because of his detailed observations of and passion for the pristine nature world, which in a way left me envying the simplicity of his life of contemplating and writing about nature (I also wondered what the landscapes he was describing in the 8th century look like now, in the uber-polluted and crowded People’s Republic of China). Li Po’s verses, on the other hand, also contain crisp pictures of nature but are shorter and wittier, and involve drunkenness (see “Drinking in Moonlight” or “Waking Up Drunk on a Spring Day”) and more references to people (usually saying goodbye to them) – they’re both poignant and revelatory. According to the Introduction about the third writer, Tu Fu, he was ‘China’s greatest poet’, although you wouldn’t necessarily know that from the translated versions of his poems (as the author points out himself). That’s not to say his poems aren’t moving and fascinating; they are, but they don’t strike me as being quite as hard-hitting as Li Po’s or as transcendent as Wang Wei’s. The verses of the final two poets in the volume (Li Ho and Li Shang-Yin) seem more obscure and ornamented to me, and therefore less direct and powerful in their depictions of the natural world and emotions, but they’re still intriguing.

The only question about reading works like this in translation (which the author again points out himself, in the Preface), is that it’s hard to know for sure if the English versions are a wholly accurate depiction of the originals, as they were written in a spare style that’s apparently a trademark of Mandarin poetry (for example, Young mentions that a literal translation of one of Wang Wei’s lines is “stream sound swallow dangerous rocks”, which he renders as “then a little stream/gurgling/among gigantic rocks”). Also some of the original meaning apparently came from structural parallels and juxtapositions that are hard to duplicate, as well as from allusions that were common to readers at the time. Be that as it may, the translated versions are enjoyable in their own right and have the capacity to bring you back to a simpler, more profound and harmonious epoch.

[Richard Rogers · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very nice collection of Tang dynasty poetry.

I've read other similar books that I thought would make a good introduction to the era and the poets, but I think this may be the best of them. David Young, the translator, is himself a poet, which is not always the case, and I think it shows. Not only does he give the English versions a smoothness, an evenness of tone, that is often lacking, he does an excellent job in the introduction describing how he arrived at his translations, what sort of compromises he was making. I found myself in agreement with his approach both as he described it and as it was demonstrated in the poetry. A strictly faithful translation, transcribing the terse, elliptical language common in most poetry of the time, is almost incomprehensible in English; a highly Anglicized version (especially with rhyme--shudder) loses any hint of the original. I like the middle ground Young has found. In addition, he writes very useful introductions to each of the five poets, and they add to the pleasure of reading these.

Many of these poems are found in other collections, and when I look at some of them closely, I find that I like these better. They read more naturally and, to my mind, have greater impact. As a simple example, the first line in one poem is translated in another book as

You ask how long before I come. Still no date is set.

Young renders the line as

You ask when I'll be back--
I wish I knew!

The first sounds too much like a business letter to me; Young's version sounds--and looks--like poetry. The distinction is not always that stark, but that is the trend.

As to the literature itself, I am partial to Tang poetry. Much of it, especially the ones I understand, read like western Romantic poetry from the 19th century (which is a good thing, IMO). Natural settings and nature imagery; human emotion; an occasional interest in common folk; a focus on art and the creative process... all attributes that I have enjoyed in western poetry and work for me as a reader. It makes these poems, and this collection in particular, accessible.

Unrelated, but key to my reaction: the book, in many places, is annotated. It clearly came from a student taking notes in class, and it was fun to see what the conversation was. Reminded me of a very long time ago. I highly recommend a student-annotated copy if you can it. :)

Good stuff. Recommended.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like Tu Fu the most because in his poetry I feel his contemporary world, his travels and travails, the people he loves and the places he treasures

I like Li Ho second most because his poetry baffles my senses with its odd juxtapositions and near time-lapses

I like Li Po third most because of the drunkenness of his poetry, how he wants to drink up the world and meditate upon its taste and fragrance

I like Shang Yin fourth most because of his love poems

I like Wang Wei fifth most because his poems are one world inhabited by humans and plants and animals and stones and wind and rain

These are rankings, yes, but I love all of these poets, and I am grateful to the Field Translation Series for making their poems so accessible.

[Asaria · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a relief! I'm glad to see I've been wrong. Poems are enjoyable and these written by Tu Fu turned out my favourite. I may not be interested much in descriptions of nature's beauty, but I appreciate translator's effort.

Still, I will never be able to get rid of the image of Li Bai as a drunken master, who during a serious hangover, grabs a pen and write a masterpiece to the chagrin of people present. As well the funny, apocryphal story of his nearly drowning because in a drunken stupor he tried to embrace the Moon. Bohemian man in every way.

[Lidik · Rating 3 out of 5]

Man's woke up one morning and was like, I really feel like translating some poems today, and busted this thing out.
But in all seriousness, reading through these poems slowly (which was difficult to do since there aren't that many) was so helpful in balancing out an overload of math classes. 10/10 recommend as supplementary reading to any upper-level math course. Your brain will have a nice rejuvenating rest. (Also, this book serves as a great introduction to the poets of this period and as a catalyst to delving deeper into their works.)

[Pepijn van Duijn · Rating 4 out of 5]

MY MOUNT CHUNGNAN COTTAGE

Since middle age I've been
a most enthusiastic Buddhist

now that I'm old I've settled
here in the mountain country

sometimes I get so happy
I have to go off by myself

there are marvelous places
I alone know about

I climb
to the source of a stream

and sit
to watch the rising mists

sometimes I come across
an old man of the woods

we talk and laugh
and forget to go home.

[Daniel Chen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poems I liked (unordered):

1. 山居秋暝 (Shān Jū Qiū Míng) - Autumn Evening in the Mountains, Wang Wei
2. Walking in Mountains in the Rain, Wang Wei
3. Watching It Snow And Thinking of My Friend, The Hermit Hu, Wang Wei
4. High in the Mountains, I fail to find the wise man, Li Po
5. The Overdecorated Lute, Li Shang-yin
6. Fallen Flowers, Li Shang-yin

[Scipio Africanus · Rating 5 out of 5]

A short but beautiful little collection of translations. David Young is a great translator, always capturing the spirit of the poems he translates.

......

You ask when I'll be back —
I wish I knew!

night rain on Pa Mountain overflows the autumn ponds

when will we trim the candle wick under our own west window?

I'll be telling you this story
night rain will be falling.

Li Shang-Yin

[Jomar Canales Conde · Rating 5 out of 5]

CONVERSATION AMONG MOUNTAINS

You ask why I live
in these green mountains

I smile
can't answer

I am completely at peace

a peach blossom
sails past
on the current

there are worlds
beyond this one

Li Po