Great translations of poems from probably the greatest Chinese poet of antiquity. (Along with Tu Fu, Li Po's friend). The man was a soldier, loved wine and women, and when his side lost in an attempt to take over the Chinese Empire, he escaped execution because of his poetic prowess.

so simple and so ethereal, and so beautiful. the pastoral, wandering nature of li po's own experience comes out wonderfully and his poems are able to express that in universal themes: the love of drink, heartbreak, yearning etc.. li po's poems have a spiritual quality which is rivaled only by whitman. hinton has a very good translation. sometimes slightly clumsy but nonetheless good.

Man, Li Po was such a drunk lol...but he did it in nature so it's not a problem.

(4.5) i loved this. the foreword was so cool and i loved learning about li po’s life. this book was truly him on a continuous adventure, drinking wine, and reminiscing on his time with his friends and wives. so beautiful, makes sense how this has standed the test of time!

Li Bai's poetry is absolutely amazing and provides such a unique perspective of ancient China. His poetry, although in translation, is truly very beautiful regardless of the topics he chooses to write about. Although several of his poems are about drinking or other "immoral" behaviors, he captures these moments so beautifully. The Taoist overtones to his poetry are very stirring and encourage you to slow down and ride the flow of life by enjoying every minute. His imagery is very powerful, especially in the few war poems that are found in this collection. I studied both Tu Fu and Li Bai in a class this semester and learned so much from their poetry. Li Bai is an expert poet and it isn't a wonder that he is considered one of the best poets of China.

Timeless, sublime poetry. Probably most enjoyable if you are older and like hiking in the mountains and drinking wine. I have put three of the poems in my iPhone notes to use for party invitations and an epitaph.

Li Po's legend is big on booze, so I guess I was expecting some kind of Tang Dynasty Bukowski. But while wine is definitely a theme for this Daoist proto-hippie, the overall effect is more Byron than Barfly. Lots of paeans to nature and Lao-Tzuish mysticism, and an earthy Dionysian vibe. Three and a half stars: good stuff, elegantly translated.

This work selects individual poems by one of the greatest Chinese poets, one who was active some 1400 years ago. Hinton introduction points out a lot of pertinent biographical details--Li Po's identification to Taoism (versus his friend Tu Fu's greater identification with Confucianism); his relationship with Tu Fu (he wrote two poems about Tu Fu, while Tu Fu wrote many more about Li Po, so the relationship seems to have been more meaningful coming from the other direction); Li Po's wandering ways and use of wine to reach states of ecstasy so that he could write better about the present moment; Li Po's political and military life and how in the civil wars of his later adulthood, he was exiled for the stances he'd taken; his disillusionment with war; and finally his return to solitude and wandering in nature. Interestingly, much of Li Po's written work, which was voluminous, has been lost. That which we have comes down to us from later collections of his material, and most critics think that as much as two-thirds of it is spurious. So much for the grand reputation I'd always thought Li Po had. It seems a shame that the fictional poet became so caught up with the real one such that we don't know whether what we have or how much of it is real.

The poems themselves are very enjoyable to read. What's amazing is the way that Li Po focuses on his surroundings such that the poems generally speak to us now even more than one thousand years later. A description of a mountain lends to thoughts about life and about moments in a given life, ones we share even now. Much is made of such thoughts especially toward the end of the collection, which I think I enjoyed even more than the beginning. Hinton had noted that Li Po's poetry had a certain carefree quality in his youth that was lost midlife as war took its toll. Indeed, the poems about war weren't that intriguing to me, but I found myself slightly more taken by the older Li Po than the younger. Experience leant a certain melancholy to the descriptions of nature that made the pieces seem all the more touching. It is amazing to think about how the wind and stream are the same that people generations ago also experienced and yet also how those things are never the same, even for us, from moment to moment, day to day.

meditative, gentle. Best read while sitting somewhere that allows for the quiet expansion of an image

Full of. A noble sadness. Serene. Wonder at nature. And the warm, humble joy of getting tubed with your homies. Wonderful.

The more I read this, the more it bugged me.

I usually like Li Po, having read his poetry in a couple different collections, but I really didn't like the translation in this one. It just didn't work for me. The rhythm came to grate on me, and I liked it less every page I turned. I hate-read the last 20 pages.

(I seldom give a negative or harsh review, but I feel free saying this because so many people like this translation, and the guy has won translation awards. He'll be fine. I can be a random data point way over on the edge that everyone can just ignore...)

Thing is, I was really looking forward to this. Thought I was gonna love it. But it's all translated in a terse, elliptical, sentence-fragment way. It's stingy with verbs and connecting words like articles and prepositions. It was a stylistic choice; I think it's meant to more nearly resemble the original Chinese than is often the case, and for other readers I guess it paid off. But I found it hard to read and hard to connect to. I'd get stuck on top-heavy sentences, looking for the verb that sometimes never showed up, and I'd have to re-read and re-parse every line. It wasn't intuitive or simple, and the struggle took me out of the poetry.

Like this. Take a look. These are lovely images, but the translation is so angular, so sharp:

Heaven temple, Shui-hsi Monastery:
east wall lit beneath cloud brocade,
sounds of a clear stream tumbling past,
green bamboo harboring tower rooms.

I'm totally ready to dig this, but it feels like a poem made of dry sticks tied with a string.

Another poem begins this way:

War last year at the Sang-kan's headwaters;
war this year on the roads at T'sung River.

And another:

Thoughts of you unending
here in Ch'ang-an,
crickets where the well mirrors year-end golds cry out
autumn, and under a thin frost, mats look cold, ice-cold.

I mean, at least there's a verb there at the end, finally. I was pretty psyched. But it's dense, and that crickets line seems to have no beginning or end, just a lot of middle...

Anyway. Whatever. I'm sure it's my bad. Everybody else thinks it's awesome.

I've found another collection with a different translator. Fingers crossed.

Li Po died drunk while trying to have sex with the moon, so he's an intriguing fellow from the get-go. Drunken attempts at moon-fucking cannot but a great poet make. One of China's singular, peculiar figures in that land's poetic tradition, Li is steeped in drunkenness and the idea of spontaneity in the face of institutional strictures, whether it be poetry, government, or sobriety. To live as part of the natural process of the world, as an extension of nature (hence the moon molestation?), is the idea at the core of Li's poetry.