Michael Johnston blogs about Staunin Ma Lane, Brian Holton’s translations of classical Chinese poetry:

Brian Holton’s passions for language and languages, for the poetic and the pawky, his musicianship which adds rhythm, melody, counterpoint and grace notes to his translations are all sweetly evident in the poems in this beautiful book.  It not only reads well; it looks good, such is the care taken in the design.

Brian is working in the tradition of Hugh MacDiarmid whose drunk narrator gazed at a thistle and Lewis Grassic Gibbon whose Scots Quair caught the language and the land fair and square.  A long time ex-pat, my own knowledge of Scots needs this stimulus.  The book and the poems should be on the syllabus of Scottish schools teaching Scots and Chinese.

Click the image for the full write-up.