Greg Whincup

This is a brilliant collection – I love the poetry selected as well as the detailed explanations relative to the original Chinese, which is printed and translated character by character on the page facing the English translations. The pinyin is also printed so Westerners like me who would like to practice or learn their Chinese can do so via great poems. I extract a few of these here, including one of my all-time favorites to start:

Seeing Off a Friend (Li Bai)
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Green mountains
Lie across the northern outskirts
Of the city.
White water
Winds around the eastern
City wall.

Once we make our parting
Here in this place,
Like a solitary tumbleweed
You will go
Ten thousand miles.

Floating clouds
Are the thoughts of the wanderer.
Setting sun
Is the mood of his old friend.

With a wave of the hand
Now you go from here.
Your horse gives a whinny
As it departs.

Ballad of the Northwest Frontier (Chen Tau)
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Sworn
To sweep away the barbarians
And heedless of their own lives,
Five thousand soldiers
In marten-trimmed brocade
Perished in the alien dust.

How sad it is
That bones
By the River of Shifting Sands
Still are men
In spring bedchamber
Dreams.

Snowy River (Lyou Dzung-Ywan)
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A thousand mountains
Where birds have ceased to fly.
Ten thousand pathways
Where tracks of men are gone.

A solitary boat,
An old man in reed cloak, bamboo hat –
Fishing alone
On the cold river in the snow.

Written after Drinking Wine (Tau Chyen)
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I built my shack
Amid the haunts of men,
And yet there is no noise
Of horse or carriage.

You ask
“How can this be?” –
Any place becomes secluded
When the mind is far away.

I pluck chrysanthemums
By the eastern fence.
In the distance
I see the mountains to the south.

The light of the mountains
Is lovely at sunset,
Flocks of birds
Fly back together for the night.

In this
There is an intimation of the Truth.
I want to express it,
But have forgotten all words.

Spring Prospect (Du Fu)
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The nation
Has been destroyed,
Mountains and rivers remain.
In the city
It is spring,
Grass and trees grow deep.

Moved by the time,
Flowers blooming
Make me weep.
Resentful of separation,
Singing birds
Shock my heart.

The beacon-fires of war
Have been lit for three months now.
Ten thousand gold-pieces
I would give
For a letter from home.

My white head
I have scratched
Till it is so sparse
That soon
The hatpin
Will not hold.

At Yellow Crane Tower, Seeing Off Meng Hau-ran on His Way to Yang-Jou (Li Bai)
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My old friend
Bids farewell to me
In the west at Yellow Crane Tower.
Amid April’s mist and flowers
He goes down to Yang-Jou.

The distant image
Of his lonely sail
Disappears in blue emptiness,
And all I see
Is the Long River
Flowing to the edge of sky.… (lisätietoja)

This was my first introduction to Chinese poetry when I began learning Chinese. After earning a master's degree in Chinese literature where I specialized in medieval Chinese poetry, it is still my favorite recommendation. Gregory Wincup touches on the historical, political, and aesthetic issues of each poem. For each poem, a first page presents the reader with a full translation in English. A second and third page provide a vertical character word-by-word translation, alongside of which is given an explanation of historical background, the art of writing Chinese poetry, and the significance of the poem in the history of Chinese literature.Chapters are broken down into themes such as military, religion, and women's writing. Because Wincup provides both the word-for-word translation and the full translation, the reader is able to see how the characters relate -- particularly rhyme schemes and the visual aspects of the characters. While a sinologist might not always approve of the final translation of a poem, no educator would deny how well the information is provided for a first-time reader of Chinese and Chinese poetry.By the way, the romanizations of the characters are Yale, not Wide/Giles or pinyin. This might be confusing to some, but it is a good choice for first-time users, even if they move on to learn pinyin while learning Chinese.… (lisätietoja)