I kept thinking of Gerard Manley Hopkins while reading this astonishingly beautiful collection of Tu Fu's poetry. Hinton achieves the same kind of language compression that Hopkins does in his nature poems:

Left hand, off land, I hear the lark ascend,
⁠His rash-fresh re-winded new-skeinèd score
⁠In crisps of curl off wild winch whirl, and pour
And pelt music, till none 's to spill nor spend.

Tu Fu's world feels remarkably present and fresh as a result; his banishment to the outer reaches of the Chinese world might have happened in the last 50 years instead of hundreds of years ago.

White houses vanishing in mist along water,
azure peaks ranged above maple shorelines,

it aches: winter's malarial fire aches. Grief
and these drizzling rains drizzle on and on,

drums welcoming ghosts never summoned
and crossbows slaughtering guardian owls.

estos poemas que nos llegan desde tan lejos parecen venirnos a decir que la poesía mantiene siempre la misma esencia, sin importar el tiempo. estos poemas tristes, contemplativos, repletos de una belleza intrínseca y minimalista, son inspiradores y compañeros, para leer lentamente, perdiéndonos entre sus versos e imágenes. la tristeza de Du Fu es también la mía, yo también estuve tan borracho como él. sus añoranzas, sus cantos a la amistad, su nostalgia y su total incomprensión por el ritmo burocrático y beligerante del mundo lo vuelven un poeta total. continuaré buscando poemas de estos chinos que escribían tanto tiempo atrás, sospecho que contienen una certeza que se explica a sí misma en la claridad y sencillez de sus aseveraciones.

Reading this book is simultaneously like meditating - each poem is a meditation, sometimes I read an individual poem three or four or five times over - and like traveling with Tu Fu through all the journeys of his life, and like a history lesson/tutorial about the age in which Tu Fu lived and how it is reflected in his poems. Hinton does a remarkable job of guiding the reader through the poems and Tu Fu's life. This is a book to return to again and again. Tu Fu's poems, written in the 700s, are ageless. This translation with commentary and guide is a true gift for English speaking readers.

A great poet in a not so great translation

I first encountered Oriental poetry in a very artistic publication of Japanese Haiku A NET OF FIREFLIES, put out by Charles E. Tuttle Company. The spare elegance of the form was deftly translated, and I was hooked at the age of about 8. I can't pinpoint my first introduction to Chinese poetry; my family has a long involvement with the orient, and I most likely encountered it not long after my first haiku.

Tu Fu is thought by many to be the finest Chinese poet. His poetry grew and deepened over the course of a life lived during a difficult time, and a chronological review of his poetry shows this growth. His personality shines through and his quality is very good. I am always happy to read Tu Fu.

I was somewhat disappointed with this edition, however. David Hinton is an able translator, but the flow of words was marred by a rather contrived use of line breaks. As an example, in the poem OVERNIGHT AT HEADQUARTERS, translated into four stanzas, we have it written thus:

Clear autumn. Beside the well, cold wu trees. I pass
Night in the river city, alone, candles guttering low.

Grieving in the endless dark, horns call to themselves.
The moon drifts - no one to see its exquisite color.

Wind and dust, one calamity after another. And frontier
passes all desolation and impossible roads, no news

Arrives. After ten desperate, headlong years, driven
Perch to perch, I cling to what peace one twig holds.

The translation is OK. The superimposition of a beautiful night over the poet's despair and weariness is good. But the artsy arrangement of the lines, breaking a sentence and having it straddle two verses to the detriment of the thought is unsatisfactory. This is done throughout the book.

Hinton is very capable - but techniques such as putting a break in the middle of a sentence, negating both the flow of thought and the structure and purpose of a stanza, which I found rather too often in this volume, really is an unwelcome interruption. I found some of the translations a little too attention-getting, as well.

(I wonder what Tu Fu would have made of the translations. I suspect that if he had been familiar with the Japanese technique of Haiku, he might have come up with a good one...)