{"id":2723,"date":"2014-08-04T09:30:54","date_gmt":"2014-08-04T01:30:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=2723"},"modified":"2014-07-18T22:39:59","modified_gmt":"2014-07-18T14:39:59","slug":"2723","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=2723","title":{"rendered":"Red Pine on Journeys, Poets, & Best-Sellerdom in China"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Bill<\/a>The NYTimes<\/em> Sinosphere blog <\/a>has an interview with poetry translator Red Pine, a\/k\/a Bill Porter. Here’s an excerpt:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n
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\u2019t care about how you translated the book into English, so what\u2019s of interest to them?<\/strong><\/div>\n
A. They\u2019re interested in my commentaries to the text \u2014 how I interpret the meaning.<\/div>\n
Q. But your commentaries are based on Chinese sources.<\/strong><\/div>\n
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\u2019t 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\u2019s a personal journey and they\u2019re interested in that. By the end of the year, my editions of the Dao De Jing<\/em> and the Diamond Sutra<\/em> are coming out in Chinese too.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
<\/div>\n
Click the image above for the full interview.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3],"tags":[1355,375],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s8srwF-2723","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3439,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=3439","url_meta":{"origin":2723,"position":0},"title":"Wadland on Red Pine’s Finding them Gone","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"March 7, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"The new LARB features Justin Wadland on Finding them Gone: Visiting China\u2019s Poets of the Past, a Chinese poetry guide through China by Red Pine, the avatar of Bill Porter. Wadland begins: IN FINDING THEM GONE, the translator Red Pine, a.k.a. travel writer Bill Porter, calls on more than 40\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/larb-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/finding-243x366.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2909,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=2909","url_meta":{"origin":2723,"position":1},"title":"Red Pine \/ Bill Porter Reviewed in Rain Taxi","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"December 11, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Justin Wadland reviews The Mountain Poems of Stonehouse, translated by Red Pine (Copper Canyon) and Yellow River Odyssey by Bill Porter (Chin Music) for Rain Taxi (author Bill Porter's nom de guerre as translator is Red Pine). The review begins: The translator known as Red Pine thinks of translating in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.raintaxi.com\/New\/media\/yellowriverodyssey-209x271.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2459,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=2459","url_meta":{"origin":2723,"position":2},"title":"Bill Porter (Red Pine) in News China","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"March 14, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"A News China article features Bill Porter, a\/k\/a Red Pine \u8d64\u677e. 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.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4049,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=4049","url_meta":{"origin":2723,"position":3},"title":"Peninsula Daily News Feature on Red Pine","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"May 7, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"When it was announced last month that Red Pine (Bill Porter) had won the American Academy of Arts & Letters Thornton Wilder Prize for translation, his local Peninsula Daily News went out to report. The article covers his background: He wanted to study anthropology with Margaret Mead at Columbia and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wqtcq1f34a8kduuv3sc0e76o-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/11443796_web1_180415-pdn-poet-winds-award-web.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":952,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=952","url_meta":{"origin":2723,"position":4},"title":"NYRblog on Red Pine","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"May 31, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Ian Johnson at the New York Review of Books' bloghas a nice piece on Chinese poetry translator Bill Porter (a\/k\/a Red Pine \u8d64\u677e) and his second life as a writer for a Chinese audience, in Finding Zen and Book Contracts in Beijing. Here's a key paragraph, which explains the importance\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4621,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=4621","url_meta":{"origin":2723,"position":5},"title":"Red Pine Interview at Emergence","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"July 15, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Bill Porter (Red Pine) interviewed at Emergence Magazine Emergence Magazine has published an interview with Bill Porter, a\/k\/a Red Pine, renowned travel writer and translator of classical Chinese poetry. The interview covers his early interest in China and poetry, and his beginnings as a translator, as well as some of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/emergencemagazine.org\/app\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Red_Pine_Bill_Porter_2880_WEB-800x573.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2723"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2723"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2723\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2726,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2723\/revisions\/2726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}