Book Review: "The Late Poems of Wang An-shih"

The Late Poems of Wang An-shih (2015)
Translated from the Chinese by David Hinton

105 pages

Following the Rhymes of Pattern-Unraveled’s
Poem Here in the Small Garden

Birds no longer sing among courtyard walls and open rooms,
so much beauty, and frogs no longer call in garden pools. Now

trees cling to overnight rain, stained with autumn’s first reds,
and wildflower grasses, green as ever, flare in morning sun.

The ten thousand things, heaven’s loom of origins: there’s no
loss or gain, it’s true, but who welcomes the worry of this life?

Let’s go out, walking-sticks in hand, and gaze into all change
itself --- wondering, wondering, eyes become offerings of light. (25)

After an influential life as a government minister, the Chinese poet Wang An-shih (1021-1086) retired to a life of quiet contemplation, living in an isolated house outside River-Serene (modern day Nanjing) and journeying frequently to temples and monasteries in the nearby mountains. During these years, as he cleansed his mind of worldly concerns and embraced the profound beauty of the natural world, he wrote poetry that explored his experiences. His delicate but powerful writings, collected in The Late Poems of Wang An-shih, reflect the challenges and rewards he discovered along his spiritual path.

Wang’s poems have been translated from the Chinese by the poet David Hinton, who has also translated the works of a number of other Chinese poets. In his introduction to this volume, Hinton describes Wang as “having devoted himself to government service until the age of fifty-five, becoming one of the most powerful and controversial statesmen in Chinese history,” and that then, at the end of this career, “Wang retired to the life of a recluse poet and spent his last decade wandering among the mountains and Ch’an (Zen) Buddhist monasteries of southeast China, writing the poetry that made him one of the greatest poets in a great poetic age: the Sung Dynasty.” (xiii)

Wang reflected this biography in his poetry, which returns often to the themes of shaking off the cares of his past life in the capital city, and embracing his study of Ch’an Buddhism:

Sent to a Monk

Through ten scattered years all confusion tangled among
affairs of the world, I masked my haggard look in smiles.

If you want a mind peaceful as autumn waters, you live
your life idle as cloud drifting ranges of mountain peaks. (3)

Self-Portrait

It’s all mirage illusion, like cinnabar-and-azure paintings, this
human world. We wander here for a time, then vanish into dust.

Things aren’t other than they are. That’s all anyone can know.
Don’t ask if this thing I am today is the thing I was long ago. (16)

Wang’s appreciation for the natural beauty he finds around his isolated home, and in the nearby mountains through which he often travels, comes through in many of his poems, which include radiant descriptions of this scenery and the profound impact it has on him.

Farewell to Gaze-Arrive

Pond a scatter of emerald-green fields,
terrace a radiant riot of crimson bloom:

who can exhaust the splendor of spring?
There’s no limit to mind’s own delight. (45)

Not surprisingly, his visits back to the city during this period leave him longing ever more urgently for a quick return to the countryside:

Leaving the City

I’ve lived in the country long enough to know its wild joys:
it feels like I’m a child back home in my old village again.

Leaving the city today, I put all that gritty dust behind me,
and facing mountains and valleys, feel them enter my eyes. (39)

These references to nature also tie directly, however, to the central theme in Wang’s poetry: his dedication to a life of contemplation. As Hinton describes in the Introduction, the Ch’an Buddhist idea that “the self and its constructions of the world dissolve into the emptiness of Absence [is] a concept that recurs in Wang An-shih’s poetry.” (xvi) Wang links the recognition and appreciation of the peacefulness and apparent timelessness of the natural world, in the face of the trials and tribulations of hectic human society, to the achievement of stillness in one’s own mind.

Wandering Bell Mountain

Gazing all day into mountains, I can’t get enough of mountains.
Retire into mountains, and old age takes the form of mountains:

when mountain blossoms scatter away, mountains always remain,
and in empty mountain streamwater, mountains deepen idleness. (7)

Although I’m not able to comment on the quality of the translations, in his introduction Hinton offers a fascinating discussion on the complexity of the task. He refers to “the remarkable resources of the Chinese poetic language: its texture of imagistic clarity, pictographic script, and grammatical emptiness.” (xvi)  Selecting a particular poem, he dissects it, character by character, describing both the images portrayed within each character’s drawing, as well as the multiple meanings inherent in the character’s representation.  Along with providing an engaging insight more broadly into the Chinese language, these several pages attune readers to the depths of meaning in Wang’s poetry.

The pieces in this exquisite volume of poetry are deeply affecting, drawing in a reader with entrancing images of beauty and stillness. Crossing centuries and bridging cultural differences, Wang’s transcendent lines communicate a startlingly relevant vision of how one might look up from quotidian cares and through a recognition of the beauty in the world, discover the path to a more profound and contemplative life.

Visiting River-Serene

I’ve traveled this land five times in seven years, and at last
laugh in wonder. It’s such majesty to be alive in this world,

to become another bundle of dry grain stored up, a lone old
man somehow sharing the idleness of generations to come. (5) 

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Other reviews / information:

Hinton includes a glossary of terms tied back to the poems, to explain the meanings of particular expressions, including certain location names that have modern equivalents or that were an important part of Wang’s spiritual journey, terms and concepts from Ch’an Buddhism, and references Wang made to other famous poems.

The phrase “the ten thousand things” mentioned in the poem that opens the review is a Chinese concept that also appears in a number of the other pieces in the book; as Hinton describes in the Introduction, it refers to “the empirical universe, which the ancients described as the ten thousand living and non-living things in constant transformation.” (xiv)  Author John Spurling used that expression as the title for his historical novel centered on another figure from China’s history, Wang Meng, who lived in the 1300’s, and served as a magistrate, but was also a talented artist. My review of Spurling’s novel is linked to at right.

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Have you read this book, others by this author, or even similar ones by other authors? I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.
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