![]() ![]() ![]() The nouns in this poem (and many others) create separate miniature pictures, and, even merely listed in order of appearance, together compose a whole landscape: twilight, mountains, sky-ch'i, rains, autumn, moon, pines, stream, rocks, bamboo, washerwomen, lotuses, boat, recluse. By some translator's alchemy, Hinton almost succeeds in giving English words the visual impact of written Chinese. This week's poem "Autumn Twilight, Dwelling Among Mountains" is typical in its combined economy and density, while unusual in the hints of end-rhyme. Thanks to an illuminating introduction and notes which seem to provide exactly the right amount of detail, we quickly get our bearings. The poems are short and compact, with beautifully concrete images which recur and connect across the collection. And any reader of contemporary poetry will feel at home with the clutter-free modernity of the language and the simple couplet-structure Hinton employs. We've all seen similar "wilderness" landscapes represented in Chinese paintings, of course – perhaps even paintings which are copies of originals by the multitalented Wang Wei himself. The work we encounter in its pages is rooted in the practice of chan (zen) Buddhism, and belongs to a culture utterly different from our own, and yet it seems far from alien. ![]() The Selected Poems of Wang Wei, translated by David Hinton and published in the UK by Anvil Press is a wonderful introduction to one of China's greatest classical poets. ![]()
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