Even in English these poems shine like Star River in the night sky (the Milky Way).

Du Fu is officially one of my (new) favorite poets.

Anécdota

Love Du Fu but didn't fully get on with Hinton's translations here. I felt like I was reading 80% him and 20% the original, which in one sense might be inevitable, but I suppose his fairly eccentric and broad attempts at explaining Zen Buddhism & Daoism at the same time as translating Du Fu contributed to me losing a bit of trust in him. I also didn't love all the faintly exoticising portmanteaus (sometimes two or three lines would just be composed of these almost unreadable hybrid forms), especially when combined with some random informal colloquialisms & anachronisms (shit, potpourri, old-timer etcetc), and the constant use of slightly awkward contractions and the word 'just' every poem or so. (I'm being mean: translating literary chinese is haard, and this isn't all negatives. Also, I have no ability to do it myself, so maybe it's me who's bringing unfair assumptions to the work)

They say he's the best poet of China. He wrote 1300 years ago. I like him. He's saddening. He's a poet though.

This review is for The Selected Poems of Tu Fu translated by David Hinton.

With translated poetry, I simply want to read good poetry that speaks to me. I find translations make a difference, but I don't care as much about how "accurate" the translation is to the original language - I like the translator to take liberties. The spirit of the original poem is often more authentic when liberties are taken when translating. I really can't comment on David Hinton's translation, but I look forward to comparing it to Burton Watson & David Young's translations. I enjoyed reading David Hinton's introduction:

n  So, although I have tried to remain faithful to the content of Tu Fu's poems, I have made little attempt to mimic the formal or linguistic characteristics of the originals, because to do so would be to misrepresent them entirely...My overall intent has been to create reciprocal configurations in English. And rather than resolving the uncertainties of the originals, I have tried to recreate Tu Fu's poems as new systems of uncertainty, as the poems he might have written had he been writing in today's English."

Tu Fu's years of wandering did not end with his death. Because of the poverty and dislocation of his family, he was not finally buried in the family graveyard near Lo-yang until his grandson managed to arrange it in 813, forty-three years after his death. Although Tu's work had aroused relatively little interest during his lifetime, the praise in Yuan Chen's tomb inscription indicates that his poems had begun to startle and move readers. Thus, he satisfied the terms of his famous statement on poetics: "If my words aren't startling, death itself is without rest." My hope for these translations is that they might deepen Tu's millennial repose

Vermont, January 1989 David Hintonn



Moonlit Night

Tonight at Fu-Chou, this moon she watches
Alone in our room. And my little, far-off
Children, too young to understand what keeps me

Away, or even remember Ch’ang-an. By now,
Her hair will be mist-scented, her jade-white
Arms chilled in its clear light. When
Will it find us together again, drapes drawn
Open, light traced where it dries our tears?


Thoughts Come

My sad eyes find frost and wild, blooming
Chrysanthemums on a cold wall. Broken willows
Sway in heaven’s wind. And when a clear flute
Sings, my traveler’s tears fall. A tower’s

Shadow stretching across poised water, peaks
Gather darkness. A frontier sun stalls–then
Night. After returning birds arrive, come
Slaughter-filled cries: crows settling-in.



The New Moon

Slice of ascending light, arc tipped
Aside its bellied darkness–the new moon
Appears and, scarcely risen beyond ancient
Frontiers, edges behind clouds. Silver,

Changeless–Heaven’s River spreads across
Empty peaks scoured with cold. White
Dew dusts the courtyard, chrysanthemum
Blossoms clotting there with swollen dark.


9/9, On Tzu-Chou City Wall p.66

This night of yellow-blossom wine
Finds me old, my hair white. Joys
I ponder lost to youth, I look out
Across distances. Seasons run together.

Brothers and sisters inhabit desolate
Songs. Heaven and Earth fill drunken eyes.
Warriors and spears, frontier passes. . . .
All day, thoughts have gone on and on


Farewell At Fang Kuan’s Grave p.67

Traveling again in some distant place, I
Pause here to offer your lonely grave
Farewell. By now, tears haven’t left dry
Earth anywhere. Clouds drift low in empty

Sky, broken. Hsieh An’s old go partner,
Sword in hand, I come in search of Hsu,
But find only forest blossoms falling and
Oriole songs sending a passerby on his way.

Excerpts from Adrift p.68

As I row upstream past a tower, the boat
glides into its shadow. Even this far
west, the stately pines of Ch’eng-tu’s
widespread villages continue. And beyond,

out there in untouched country, autumn
colors heighten cold clarity. Mountain
snows bleached in its glare, sunlight
conjures exquisite rainbows among clouds.

…

Craving delicate beauty,
we avoid the thick squalor of things.

Over my village: scattered clouds, lovely
twilight. Here, roosting hens settle in.
Each departure like any other, where is
my life going in these isolate outlands?

Fresh moonlight falls across my clothes. It
ascends ancient walls dusted with frost.
Thick wine ready to drink since time began,
war drums break loose east in the city.

The Musk Deer p.90

Clear streams lost forever, you’ll end
Served up in jade dainties. Little
Talent for the life of hermit immortals,
Unable even to resent fine kitchens–once

Times fall apart, anything is a trifle,
Faint voice at disaster’s heart, anything.
Noblemen noble as thieves, gluttonous,
You’ll get wolfed down in a royal trice.


Rain p.98

Roads not yet glistening, rain slight,
Broken clouds darken after thinning away.
Where they drift, purple cliffs blacken.
And beyond--white birds blaze in flight.

Night p.99

Thoughts p.100

Returning Late p.101

Riverside Moon and Stars p.105

The sudden storm leaves a clear, autumnal
Night and Jade String radiant in gold waves.
Celestial River a timeless white, clarity
Claims Yangtze shallows anew. Strung Pearls

Snaps, scattering shimmering reflections.
A mirror lofts into blank space. Of remnant
Light, the clepsydra’s linger drop,
What remains with frost seizing blossoms?


Opposite A Post-Station, The Boat
Moonlit Beside A Monastery p.105

boat mirroring a clear, bright moon
Deep in the night, I leave lanterns unlit.
A gold monastery stands beyond green maples

Here, a red post-tower beside white water
Faint, drifting from the city, a crow’s cry
Fades. Full of wild grace, egrets sleep.
Hair white, a guest of lakes and rivers,
I tie blinds open and sit alone, sleepless.


Excerpts from Thoughts, Sick With Fever On A Boat
(Thirty-Six Rhymes Offered To Those
I love South Of The Lake) p.112

White houses vanish along the water in fog.
Over the maple shoreline, green peaks rise.
It aches. Winter’s malarial fire aches,
And the drizzling rain won’t stop falling.

Ghosts they welcome here with drums bring
No blessings. Crossbows kill nothing but owls.
When my spirits ebb away, I feel relieved.
And when grief comes, I let it come. I drift

Outskirts of life, both sinking and floating,
Occurrence become its perfect ruin of desertion.


p.115-200 biographical information

An artful translation of a short selection of poems by the great Du Fu. What does it mean to live everyday life not only in poverty but also in the midst of war? Du Fu lived in the Tang dynasty well over a thousand years ago but his reflective works still ring true today, especially during this extraordinary time of a pandemic.

This book is a wonderful read. Hinton has a poetic sensitivity and I think he really captures the spirit of Tu Fu.

Of course, the purists hate translations and yes it's probably difficult to compare with the original work, as not many of us westerners speak Mandarin. However, from the descriptions of his life and character, there seems to be an affiliation between Hinton and Tu Fu.

Each poem is a revealing facet of Tu's life, from his homes, wife and children. He lived in turbulent times, of epic wars and claims to power. Hinton tells us that during one protracted war, an estimated 36 million people were left dead, displaced or homeless. And yet, Tu Fu continued to write his poetry; each one a Taoist/Ch'an meditation that touches the soul.

Not to be read too quickly.

"mi espalda al sol; sobre mis libros la luz de los bambúes"

I will remember little of this book but it leaves a vague aftertaste of weak wine left out in chilly moonlight

I love Du Fu´s poetry. I have read it a lot over my life, both in Chinese and English, and keep coming back to it. He had such an amazing, simple style, yet it hides great depth, and it has affected my own writing and poetry a lot.

He was also a refugee, grief-stricken and battered like driftwood on the waves of civil war in 8th century China. It was one of the inspirations for one of my own collections of poetry, and I had modern-day refugees read some of his poems from 1300 years ago, and they nodded: "This is what I saw, too."

Such an amazingly clear voice, to me it feels like he is sitting next to me as I read. This is a really good program on him; it´s in English, with Michael Wood presenting, and Ian McKellen reading the poems. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sm0lz...

I've been reading the T'ang poets for half a century now -- and still have very little access to them in the original. But Hinton always does a good job of "translating the reader" so she/he can find entry. Good intro here giving the context of the translations, a very helpful biography of the poet at the back, followed by notes to the poems. The translations read well, even with occasional inversions or lack of articles, all done, I think, to reflect the formal considerations Du made in the Chinese (but what do I know of 8th century Chinese prosody!?).

Du made choices. He lived mostly in poverty (and took his wife and children there, too). He travelled a lot, mostly because of political or military threats, and died in exile. All of this is reflected in the poems. I think many readers who think of T'ang poetry only as a kind of nature poetry, would find this revelatory, although I continue to be deeply moved by very specific references to the birds, waters and trees that surrounded Du 1300 years ago.