Chinese poetry, Life and Love

Laughing Man (the_laughing_man@hotmail.com)
Thu, 04 Nov 1999 02:58:51 -0800 (PST) 

Hi fishes! Sorry for my being absent lately, but a lot has been going on 
outside our nice pond, and I haven’t been able to neither read nor write. 
Judging by the flood of posts lately, I bet you haven’t even noticed I've 
been gone.

I further apologize for being so slow, but I have made a trip into memory 
lane and am coming back with comments regarding an old thread. Even though I 
can forever ramble about whether we all are assholes or not, or some other 
more recent topic, I’m handing you this little sentimental reminiscing 
instead.

I did notice some posts about Japanese and Chinese poetry some weeks ago. 
The above pretentious title leaves me no choice but to start with some heavy 
quoting from a very special ol’ book of mine:

“Poetry presents the thing in order to convey the feeling. It should be 
precise about the thing and reticent about the feeling, for as soon as the 
mind responds and connects with the thing the feeling shows in the words; 
this is how poetry enters deeply into us. If the poet presents directly 
feelings which overwhelm him, and keeps nothing back to linger as an 
aftertaste, he stirs us superficially; he cannot start the hands and feet 
involuntarily waving and tapping in time, far less strengthen morality and 
refine culture, set heaven and earth in motion and call up the spirits!”

- Wei T’ai (eleventh century)

I’m holding in my hand my old sixties-paperback copy of the Penguin Classic 
“Poems of the late T’ang”, translated and introduced by A. C. Graham. It was 
a gift from S., a lover from ages ago. I’ve wrapped the cover in plastic to 
make it last longer. I’ve use tape to hold the pages together. This book is 
no longer a work of Richard Clay (The Chaucher Press) Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk, 
but of TLM Press Ltd. Like a pearl in relation to the particle of sand in 
it.

This anthology was my introduction to Chinese poetry. It was a sacred book, 
consisting of equal parts pure love and pure hardship. I could not simply 
read it, I had to study it. Written in the foreign language of English, 
translating from ancient Chinese, discussing different way of interpretation 
and talking about the classic imagist interpretators Pound, Waley and Lowell 
like close personal friends, this was not an easy task for a natural science 
college kid like myself. More than that. The book personified S’s and my 
relation: elusive, beautiful, with every word, spoken or (more often) not, 
having infinite intrinsic meaning or maybe no meaning at all. Equal parts 
pure love and pure hardship

I used the book as reference, oracle, friend and foe. The imagist war-cry of 
Wei T’ai, taken form the intro and quoted above, followed me wherever I 
went, just like lines from the actual poems. The border between our 
relationship and the words of the book didn’t exist. Every word, every 
sentence was partly about elusive S., partly of her. Her voice through 
ancient poets.

The love story between S. and me was one of mutual attraction and mutual 
disability to communicate on a straight level. Instead of going for an open 
communication, trying to address what was on my mind, I tried to untie my 
Gordian knot by analyzing our relationship, every scene and sentence put 
forward as evidence for my nightly courtroom. The anthology was exhibit A. 
Or at least B. The sentence was harsh.

Not surprisingly, reading the poems with an open mind was all but 
impossible. Therefore, it was not until years had past and the relationship 
lived only in memory, I dusted off my ol’ Graham and instead of reading only 
the S.-TLM love story, I read something almost as personal and much more 
general. Earlier, I could hardly read Li Shang-Yin, the only one in the 
collection writing explicitly of human love. Now I most definitely could.

“The fairy tell/story is always about ourselves,” one of my favorite authors 
writes. Never have this been more true and more false for me at the same 
time. 9/10 of the poems are very much not about human to human love in any 
form, many of them are “objectively” very hard to relate to. Yet my 
identification with every syllable was complete.

Before, these “fairy tells” were ONLY about myself. Now they are, but not 
completely. And boy is it a relief.


This poem is one I often read when I pick up the collection:

Coming was an empty promise, you have gone, and left
   no footprint:
The moonlight slants above the roof, already the
   fifth watch sounds.
Dreams of remote partings, cries which cannot summon,
Hurrying to finish the letter, ink which will not thicken.
The light of candle half encloses kingfishers threaded
   with gold,
The smell of musk comes faintly through embroidered
   water-lilies.
       Young Liu complained that Fairy Hill is far.
Past Fairy Hill, range above range, ten thousand mountains rise.

-Li Shang-Yin (untitled poem)


Comm: Fairy Hills is one of the mountains of the immortals in the Eastern 
Sea. ”Young Liu” refer (slightly contemptuously) to Emperor Wu of Han’s 
search for immortality.


If you can get hold of a copy of Mr Grahams anthology, do so. I strongly 
recommend it. Even if it is not give to you by a very special S.

/Your Laughing Man

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