Tag Archives: Bill Porter

Hamill’s Crossing the Yellow River Reviewed

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crossingyellowriverJohn Bradley has reviewed Sam Hamill’s Crossing the Yellow River: Three Hundred Poems from the Chinese (Tiger Bark Press) at Rain Taxi. He writes:

What is about Chinese poetry, especially the poetry of the T’ang Dynasty (618-907 CE), that has drawn so many translators over the years, such as Ezra Pound, Arthur Waley, Kenneth Rexroth, and Bill Porter, to name only a few? … Li Po’s “Questions Answered” offers a good example of that “depth and clarity and delicacy”:

You ask why I live
alone in the mountain forest,

and I smile and am silent
until even my soul grows quiet.

The peach trees blossom.
The water continues to flow.

I live in the other world,
one that lies beyond the human.

Click the image for the full review.

Red Pine on Journeys, Poets, & Best-Sellerdom in China

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Bill Porter is a best-selling author who has also translated over a dozen books of poetry and religious texts.The NYTimes Sinosphere blog has an interview with poetry translator Red Pine, a/k/a Bill Porter. Here’s an excerpt:
Q. Besides your travel books, your translations of some classics, such as the Platform Sutra and the Heart Sutra have been published in Chinese. Most Chinese readers probably don’t care about how you translated the book into English, so what’s of interest to them?
A. They’re interested in my commentaries to the text — how I interpret the meaning.
Q. But your commentaries are based on Chinese sources.
A. I think our educational system makes us perhaps more open to different ideas. The Chinese are more constrained by their history of commentaries. Me, I don’t know what the tradition is. I just read the commentaries and use them to understand how the texts relate to practice. [Mr. Porter is a practicing Buddhist.] So it’s a personal journey and they’re interested in that. By the end of the year, my editions of the Dao De Jing and the Diamond Sutra are coming out in Chinese too.
Click the image above for the full interview.

Bill Porter (Red Pine) in News China

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A News China article features Bill Porter, a/k/a Red Pine 赤松. It’s mostly a promo for his “new book, Finding Them Gone, which will also be his final book,” the article says (forthcoming from Copper Canyon). But it ends with significant details and a point about translating classical Chinese poetry. Here’s how:

Having all but wrapped up his upcoming book, Porter, 70, said he felt it was time for him to stop writing, and that his recent visits to graves of some of his favorite poets were a fitting way to bring an end to his publishing career. The collection, which includes the work of 36 poets, spanning pre-modern work by Confucius (551-479 BC) to the writings of Hanshan. It is expected to be published in both English and Chinese in 2015.

“I enjoy reading their poetry and wanted to pay my respect,” he said. “Most foreigners translate Chinese poetry sitting in libraries, but if you don’t go to the place and know nothing of the background, how could you know the meanings of the poems?”

For the full article click the image above.