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When I go to the Bloc 11 Cafe in Union Square I am usually grading papers, reading the rags, or writing an article for The Somerville Times. This is not the case for Patrick Hunter, a 20 something Somerville resident. Hunter translates ancient Chinese poetry at this esteemed literary cafe. Here is the podcast of the interview I conducted with him, along with a statement from this translator.
Listen to the interview here.
“I am a resident of Somerville, and a lover of poetry. I have been working on translations from an anthology of Tang period Chinese poetry; as you may well know, Tang lyric poetry is some of the finest verse in world literature, and has had an inestimable influence on modern English poetry, informing the verse of poets as diverse as Ezra Pound, Gary Snyder, and Lorine Niedecker among others. I’ve included below five of my translations of poems which I feel might be particularly resonant with a contemporary English language readership, that is, they do not require much historical and cultural context to appreciate. It seems to me that these verses have a remarkable power to move us, even though they were penned and sung by poets in a far distant country over a thousand years ago. Surely this power to move across such vast cultural, temporal and linguistic spaces testifies to their high standing in world literature. If I’ve been successful, I have managed to convey something of their music and feeling in English verse.”
Ascending Crane Tower, Wang Chih Huan
as the noon sun disappears behind the mountains
the Yellow River runs toward the sea
I want to see everything in the hundreds of miles
between here and there
once again up to the top of Crane Tower
Bamboo Grove Retreat, Wang Wei
In the deep shade of Bamboo Grove I sit
Playing the guitar, singing
The wind’s soughing in the leaves.
No one knows I’m in this secluded wood.
When the bright moon shines
We’ll light each other up.
Sitting alone on Ching-ting Mountain, Li Bai
into the upper air a flock of birds vanishes
while lonesome clouds pass by
in the idleness of solitude
Watching each other
without becoming bored
Ching-ting mountain is all there is
On an Autumn Day, Keng Wei
light aslant the village lane,
melancholy comes; who to talk with?
on the old path no one walks.
autumn wind–quivering fields of grain.
Fall Wind Borne, Liu Yu-hsi
where blows the winds of fall
following flocks of geese, moaning and sighing?
when dawn came,
and a draught entered the courtyard through the trees,
this forlorn wayfarer was the first up to hear it.
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