Read The Selected Poems of Tu Fu Expanded and Newly Translated by David Hinton Tu Fu David Hinton 9780811228381 Books

Product details Paperback 288 pages Publisher New Directions; 1 edition (September 24, 2019) Language English ISBN-10 081122838X

The Selected Poems of Tu Fu Expanded and Newly Translated by David Hinton Tu Fu David Hinton 9780811228381 Books Reviews

• I am not Susan but her husband Peter. I am immersed both in this little book and in the larger body of David Hinton's work, having read his Hunger Mountain. Fossils Sky, and The collection of Wilderness poems. Other books are waiting. I have read the comments of some readers, cavils and quibbles often by people more educated than I am in matters sino-poetical, but when I sit with D.H, whether with his own book, his introductions, or his translations, I feel I am in the presence of a dedicated soul married to a superb intelligence. I will never be able to peer past the translations and judge their accuracies. What I can do is read D.H--- this book now---and feel he has brought to me a gift I have not found in the "realms of gold" I have traveled with the literatures I know. Tu Fu's grief for what has happened in his world; his tenderness towards family and friends; his astonishing accounts of the ravages of war; his refusal entirely to give up on the philosophical and spiritual traditions he took in so deeply as a young man all strengthen my own resolve to live out the life of my heart. I am no poet, more a pilgrim, and this book will travel with me a long way. David Hinton, thank you. It is not often I come across work that has this kind of love in it, what you found and what you gave to it.
• This is a very fine exploration into the work of Tu Fu. The introduction, the translation, the biography and notes constitute a portrait of the man and the cultural world he inhabited. One always has to wonder how valid a translation of 8th century Chinese poetry into 21st century American can be, and clearly any translator is creating a new being based on sympathies and guesswork, and T'ang Dynasty history homework.
  
  But there is a qualitative hierarchy of understanding that provides that the highest perceptions remain comprehensible through and despite changes of time. This comprehensible "something" is not easy to specify, and specification would kill it. Hence the need for poetry. But there is a certain emotional context to Tu Fu's poems about the hardships and momentary joys of his life that is missing from our cultural world, and that is always missing, for which there is always a remote nostalgia. A sense of the realness of life, the seriousness of it, the ultimate goodness of it, or maybe I should say that they, the poems, are explorations of the miracle of selfness in the world of sad events.
  
  The printing in the book is painfully black and inky, but apart from that, it's great.
  
  The translations were by David HInton, who, by my somewhat limited experience of reading translations of the great Chinese poets, is the best. There is an element of mindfulness to these poems and to other poets Hinton has translated - re-construed - that most of the translators miss. In fact, the mindfulness, the watching, no matter what the personal favorability of the circumstances is the whole point. Transcendent emotions grounded in daily life.
• Poetry in translation naturally loses some of its power and beauty - and in reading David Hinton's translations, there is a sense of "clunkiness" to some of the poems. Still, the raw emotion, passion and tragedy of Du Fu's life is apparent here. While I cannot comment on changes to style or content in classical Chinese poetry that Du Fu apparently introduced, the intensely personal nature of his work are far from the abstract symbolism typically associated with poetry. These are the poems of a man who knew how to live - the joys and sorrows and trials of life have an immeadiacy that belies their age. (Du Fu wrote between 737 - 770 CE) An example "To stand alone - temples bleached with trouble and worry, Defeated .... and here I've just sworn off that blessed wine." What a guy!
  
  What I found most helpful in reading and understanding Du Fu was the chronology for the poems (what was going on as the T'ang Dynasty began to implode and what and where Du Fu was during this time) as well as his notes about each poem, providing information about geographical landmarks and specific events relevant to each poem. A must for any lover of poetry or those interested in T'ang China.
• This book covers Tu Fu's complete poetry life (from 737 - 770), and Hinton's selections and commentary show Tu Fu's change and growth. He experiences a full life, including death falling in and out of favor with the local government, and invasion from Tibetans. The early poems of separation (Separation in a bird's cry startles the heart) and grief over a children when too poor for food (O, the poof grieve like a boundless wind in autumn trees.") have sadness. Normally a family man, he occasionally seeks the solitude of a recluse "A hermits wall is low, bit still home". Perhaps there is a tension in him, of desire to serve versus seclusion and family. He is one of the few poets, to turn away from government service, for a complete life of poetry.
  
  Toward the end, fighting ill health, "Old and tired, my hair white, I dance and sing out. / Goosefoot cane, no sleep . . . . Catch me if you can!"
• Tu Fu is one of the greatest Chinese poets, reflecting a Buddhist sensibility and a down-to-earth perspective of life's suffering and joys. David Hinton's translation is eloquent, for those like myself who cannot read classical Chinese. These are poems to be savored one at a time, one day at a time.
• For me, a wonderful surprise. Fine art, good translation.