Practice, rest, repeat, Bai Juyi says to those learning to play an instrument. Perhaps written ca. 818, when Bai Juyi was sent in dispair deep in Sichuan, to distant Chongzhou (considered the birthplace of Taoism). There Bai began to learn the guzheng, a Chinese zither. The zhēng (zither) able to create ten thousand sounds of…
Playing a Guqin
Nostalgia and an old fashioned love song. To the accompaniment of the wind blowing through tthe pine trees and the sound of water pouring over stones in a nearby creek, our 8th century Tang poet, Liu Changqing plays a favorite tune on the guqin (琴, qin, 古琴 guqin, a seven string zither-like instrument) . And…
七步诗 Qībùshī, Seven Step Poem
Brotherly love — a third century poem by Cáozhí about sibling rivalry during the Three Kingdoms Period in China. Seven Step PoemCook the beans burn the beanstalk,While the beans weep in the panTwo born of the same rootCooked together, what’s the hurry 七步诗 煮豆燃豆萁，豆在釜中泣。本自同根生，相煎何太急 QībùshīZhǔ dòu rán dòu qí, dòu zài fǔ zhōng qì.Běn zì…
Spring Again — 2023
Chang’an, 740s Li Bai, the Tang dynasty’s new, young Rock Star poet, is at the imperial court in Chang’an, writing poems to please the Emperor Xuanzong and his concubine, the lovely Yang Guifei. An earlier translation, Spring Thoughts. In SpringIn Yan the grass is thin as silk and blue,In Qin the mulberry bows down with…
Spring Poem, Bai Juyi
Spring Poem If she turned and asked, would her parrot say why she is sad? The Tang poet, Bi Juyi (白居易, 772–846) gives us this image in Spring of a girl standing on the porch outside her bedroom. The flowers in the trees are blooming, but furrowed eyebrows show the sorrow in her heart. As…
Dreaming of Jiangnan
An old man in his seventies tries to remember his youthful days in Jiangnan and can’t. [Note. In a narrow sense, Jiangnan is the area south of the Yangtze River (江, Jiang) that includes Hangzhou and Suzhou, near modern day Shanghai.] Dreaming of Jiangnan Sweet JiangnanA place I knew well.At sunrise, the river flowers are…
Where’s that Girl?
Taohua yijiu xiao chunfeng. Love and be loved. A peach blossom face, a sudden look. The moment is magical. But when a poor poet doesn’t seize the opportunity, the moment is forever gone. A year later only the peach blossoms remain, fluttering in the wind. Topic: a Village South of the Capital At this very…
Pure and Fair Song
An Incomparable Beauty How Li Bai flattered a beautiful woman and first made his name at the imperial court. The beauty is Yang Guifei (楊貴妃), consort to the Emperor Xuanzong, whose life would tragically end. But our poet did not know that then. [Note. Yushan – Jade mountain, home of the goddess of the West;…
To an Old Friend Lost in Tibet
Dear Friend, Where are you now? Chinese (Han) and Tibetan (Fan) armies battled for centuries in the regions west of China. There was the important Silk Route to protect and valuable jade found in Xinjiang province. Yuezhi (identified in the first line of the poem) refers to nomadic tribesmen who settled in the grasslands of…
River Snow
A popular winter poem by Liu Zong Yuan. Liu was born in 773, during the late Tang dynasty. Like many officials, he saw his star rise and fall. This poem is a favorite, expressing man’s loneliness in the world, indeed, in the universe. Liu’s relatively early death in 819 is not explained, but one suspects…
100 Tang Poems 