I get my news about the U.S. rather slowly. For example, I only just learned of the snowstorm in the Northeast. Much as I would like to gloat and taunt my NYC-dwelling friends about the fact that it never snows here in Chengdu, the reality of the situation is this: I am drinking my coffee hot, the down comforters are on the beds, I am currently wearing two wool sweaters, and although I have not yet put on any thermal underwear, that moment is approaching rapidly. All of this can mean but one thing–winter has arrived–and there is no emoji capable of accurately depicting my feelings on the subject. Continue reading
Poetry
“America Used to be America (for Me)”: A Poem
I suppose this is my personal homage to Langston Hughes’s great poem, “Let America be America Again,” about which I’ve written here before. Perhaps it’s also my personal update to that poem, my own “creative misprision”–to borrow Harold Bloom’s term–through which I’m trying to say where I think we are and where I hope we’re going. Continue reading
Falling in Love with Dante’s Divine Comedy
In his essay, “Why Read the Classics?,” collected in the eponymous volume, Italo Calvino argues that “… it is no use reading the classics out of a sense of duty or respect, we should only read them for love.” He adds, “It is only during unenforced reading that you will come across the book which will become ‘your’ book” (p. 6). I began reading Dante out of curiosity, but then I fell in love with an imaginative vision that dared what few authors have dared–and what no writer today would even consider. Continue reading
Breaking “The Great Taboo”: A Translation of Li Bai’s 李白 “Drinking Alone Beneath the Moon 月下獨酌”
There is a tradition among English-language translators of Chinese poetry to translate all Chinese poems as unrhymed free-verse. This tradition goes back at least as far as Ezra Pound–whose “translations” bear little resemblance to their originals–and is very much alive and kicking. So much so that I am borrowing the historian, Nathan Sivin’s, term–“The Great Taboo,”–to describe it.
“Yours”: A Poem of Devotion
This poem, which first appeared in the collection of poems I published here last year, was recently published in the Summer 2018 issue of Tokens. Since Tokens is not available online (and has a rather limited circulation!), I thought I’d post it here. Continue reading
Thinking about Langston Hughes
Photo by Carl Van Vechten
Langston Hughes is one of those poets whose work appealed to me as a young person–I think I was in ninth grade when I first read his poetry–and has only continued to grow in my estimation since then. Continue reading
Poetry (6): A Gift of Poetry for the Bicentenary of Bahá’u’lláh’s Birth
October 22nd of this year marks the two-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Bahá’u’lláh, founder of the Bahá’í Faith and the most recent of God’s Messengers to humanity–whose number includes Christ, Muhammad, Buddha, Krishna, Moses, Zoroaster, and an unknown number of other Messengers whose names have been lost. Continue reading
Poetry (5) and Bicycling Chengdu (4)
Two of my recurring topics in one post–not to shabby! At any rate, I was on my bike again recently. The first line came to me as I set off, I finished the rest of it while waiting for a stoplight to change. I hope you enjoy it! Continue reading
On First Looking into Keats’s Sonnets
I want to talk today about Keats’s sonnets. I’ve always liked Keats—it’s hard to imagine not liking Keats—but I’ve mostly read his odes. Is it possible to graduate from an English-language high school without reading “Ode to a Grecian Urn?” I certainly hope not. But I honestly can’t recall ever reading any of his sonnets except for “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer.” I didn’t know what I was missing. Continue reading
Spring, the Limits of Expression, and the Men who Won’t Fit In
How’s that for a title? Spring has been steadily growing here, and as I sat outside one warm evening, it occurred to me that there are definite limits to how much of my experience I can communicate in this blog. I add audio recordings to this blog to help fill in some of the details that photos can’t capture (and I’m going to post a video soon!), but there’s no way I can capture the soft, moist touch of a warm spring breeze blowing through the trees of a park at night. I suppose I could record the sound it makes, but even that would be difficult–it’s too quiet, too subtle–and without the accompanying feelings of the gentle night-warmth and the soothing way the wind brushes across your skin, it just wouldn’t be the same. Continue reading
Ten Thousand Li 