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Dancing with the Dead: The Essential Red Pine Translations
Featuring An essential collection from the leading figure of Chinese poetry translation, presenting work of insight, humor, and musicality that continues to resonates across thousands of years.
Red Pine is one of the world's finest translators of Chinese poetic and religious texts. His new anthology, Dancing with the The Essential Red Pine, gathers over thirty voices from the ancient Chinese past—including Buddhist poets Cold Mountain (Hanshan) and Stonehouse (Shiwu), as well as Tang-dynasty luminaries Wei Yingwu and Liu Zongyuan.
Dancing with the Dead also includes translations from such religious texts as Puming’s Oxherding Pictures and Verses and Lao-Tzu’s Daodejing, as well as poems and woodblock illustrations from Su Po-Jen’s Guide to Capturing a Plum Blossom, one of the world’s first printed books of art.
Throughout the book, poems are accompanied by footnotes providing historical context, and each section includes a new and illuminating introduction chronicling Red Pine’s relationship to the poet—discovery, travel, scholarship. Dancing With The Dead is more than a book, it is a part travel essay, part road map, part guided meditation. It is a history translated in poem.
For Red Pine, “translating the words in a Chinese poem isn’t that hard, but finding the spirit that inspired those words, the music of the heart, and asking it to inspire [his heart], that is how, and why, [he] translates.”
“our luggage is full of river travel poems
may we ride forth together again.”
– Wei Yingwu
- GenresPoetryPhilosophyChina
344 pages, Paperback
Published April 11, 2023
23 people are currently reading
71 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
September 18, 2023
This book was my 52nd birthday present from my sister.
A thoroughly enjoyable read, and full of insights into Red Pine’s journey and experience as a translator of Chinese poetry. Reading anything from Red Pine is to be transported to another place and time and to feel entirely immersed in the Chinese culture of ancient times, and this book is no exception despite it being a collection of excerpts (often with what appears to be updated commentary) from previously published translations.
Each section is prefaced by some insights into how Red Pine became aware of a given poet or embarked upon a given journey and the process by which he became ready to translate that poet’s work. These are as much worth reading as the poems themselves as they set the mood and provide context and understanding for a deeper appreciation.
After reading the brief, 3 page preface, I would highly recommend jumping all the way to the end to page 317 before reading even one poem. Why, you ask? Because what serves as the 5 page epilogue to the book does such an incredible job of clarifying the role, point, and purpose of poetry in our cultures that you’re left with no choice but to read each word, line, and stanza with the care it deserves. Not just in this book, but perhaps in any other book of poetry as well.
No much more to say. It’s worth reading.
A thoroughly enjoyable read, and full of insights into Red Pine’s journey and experience as a translator of Chinese poetry. Reading anything from Red Pine is to be transported to another place and time and to feel entirely immersed in the Chinese culture of ancient times, and this book is no exception despite it being a collection of excerpts (often with what appears to be updated commentary) from previously published translations.
Each section is prefaced by some insights into how Red Pine became aware of a given poet or embarked upon a given journey and the process by which he became ready to translate that poet’s work. These are as much worth reading as the poems themselves as they set the mood and provide context and understanding for a deeper appreciation.
After reading the brief, 3 page preface, I would highly recommend jumping all the way to the end to page 317 before reading even one poem. Why, you ask? Because what serves as the 5 page epilogue to the book does such an incredible job of clarifying the role, point, and purpose of poetry in our cultures that you’re left with no choice but to read each word, line, and stanza with the care it deserves. Not just in this book, but perhaps in any other book of poetry as well.
No much more to say. It’s worth reading.
August 18, 2023
This book is a delightful collection of poetry from a large variety of ancient Chinese poets. The poets and poems are all carefully researched and presented, but it is difficult to assess why some of them are special enough to have been included.
The translations of Laozi are accompanied by many commentaries, and they feel as though they track to my understanding of what Laozi was pointing at.
While some of these poems and poets, most notably the Laozi poems, are familiar to me, most are not. Poets such as Cold Mountain, Stonehouse, Son Boren, Wei Yingwu, and Qu Yuan have poems included here, but I often found myself wondering why. Many of the poems are enjoyable as simple, direct vignettes of experience of (exiled) mountainside living, but had little appeal beyond this. It wasn't that the verses were difficult to understand, but they did not appeal to me as a casual reader with no real knowledge of Chinese history or traditions.
The translations of Laozi are accompanied by many commentaries, and they feel as though they track to my understanding of what Laozi was pointing at.
While some of these poems and poets, most notably the Laozi poems, are familiar to me, most are not. Poets such as Cold Mountain, Stonehouse, Son Boren, Wei Yingwu, and Qu Yuan have poems included here, but I often found myself wondering why. Many of the poems are enjoyable as simple, direct vignettes of experience of (exiled) mountainside living, but had little appeal beyond this. It wasn't that the verses were difficult to understand, but they did not appeal to me as a casual reader with no real knowledge of Chinese history or traditions.
October 30, 2023
The author's research and scholarship are extensive and it shows. The terse beauty of Classical Chinese Poetry, especially from the Tang Dynasty, have always held a special fascination for me. And the author's background information about each poem is quite illuminating. There are some wonderful descriptions of the author traveling around China to locate the graves of these ancient poets so he can pour a shot of whiskey on them, then read one of their poems aloud. Well worth the time.
September 4, 2024
Thanks to Jamie for gifting me a copy! I'll treasure it forever.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews