The Mountain Poems of Meng Hao-Jan

by Meng Hao-Jan, David Hinton (Translator)

Overview

The first full flowering of Chinese poetry occurred in the illustrious T’ang Dynasty, and at the beginning of this renaissance stands Meng Hao-jan (689-740 c.e.), esteemed elder to a long line of China’s greatest poets. Deeply influenced by Ch’an (Zen) Buddhism, Meng was the first to make poetry from the Ch’an insight that deep understanding lies beyond words. The result was a strikingly distilled language that opened new inner depths, non-verbal insights, and outright enigma. This made Meng Hao-jan China’s first master of the short imagistic landscape poem that came to typify ancient Chinese poetry. And as a lifelong intimacy with mountains dominates Meng’s work, such innovative poetics made him a preeminent figure in the wilderness (literally rivers-and-mountains) tradition, and that tradition is the very heart of Chinese poetry.
This is the first English translation devoted to the work of Meng Hao-jan. Meng’s poetic descendents revered the wisdom he cultivated as a mountain recluse, and now we too can witness the sagacity they considered almost indistinguishable from that of rivers and mountains themselves.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780972869232
Publisher:	Steerforth Press
Publication date:	01/05/2004
Pages:	81
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.25(d)

About the Author

Meng Hao-jan (689-740 C.E.) is generally considered to be one of China’s most important poets, but before now, there has never been an edition of his work in English. Ch’an (Zen) Buddhism was coming to maturity and becoming widely practiced among the intelligentsia of China. Ch’an not only clarified the spiritual ecology of early Taoist thought, it also emphasized the old Taoist idea that deep understanding lies beyond words. In poetry, this gave rise to a much more distilled language, especially in its concise imagism, which opened new inner depths, non-verbal insights, and outright enigma. It was in the work of Meng Hao-jan that this poetic revolution began, a revolution that marked the beginning of Chinese poetry’s first great flowering. He opened the poetic ground that would be cultivated so productively by the great poets that followed, and he was revered by those poets as their esteemed elder, first master of the short imagistic landscape poem.
Translator: David Hinton’s many translations of ancient Chinese poetry have earned wide acclaim for creating compelling contemporary poetry. He is also the first translator in more than a century to translate the four original masterworks of Chinese philosophy: Tao Te Ching, Chuang Tzu, Analects, Mencius. He has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship as well as numerous fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. In 1997 he received the Landon Translation Award from the Academy of American Poets.

Read an Excerpt

Autumn Begins

Autumn begins unnoticed. Nights slowly lengthen,
and little by little, clear winds turn colder and colder,

summer’s blaze giving way. My thatch hut grows still.
At the bottom stair, in bunchgrass, lit dew shimmers.


Gathering Firewood

Gathering firewood I enter mountain depths,
mountain depths rising creek beyond creek

choked with the timbers of bridges in ruins.
Vines tumble low, tangled over cragged paths,

and at dusk, scarce people grow scarcer still.
Mountain wind sweeping through simple robes,

my chant steady, I shoulder a light bundle,
watch smoke drift across open country home.

Table of Contents

	Map	viii
	Introduction	ix
	Autumn Begins	3
	Gathering Firewood	4
	Listening to Cheng Yin Play His Ch'in	5
	Adrift on North Creek	6
	Climbing Long-View Mountain's Highest Peak	7
	Looking for the Recluse Chang Tzu-jung at White-Crane Cliff	8
	Adrift on a Summer's Day, I Visit the Hermitage of Recluse T'eng	9
	Inscribed on a Wall at Li's Farm, for Ch'i-wu Ch'ien	10
	On Reaching the Ju River Dikes, Sent to My Friend Lu	11
	On Reaching the Han River	12
	Roaming up to Master Jung's Hermitage ...	13
	Visiting the Hermitage of Ch'an Monk Jung	14
	Returning to My Garden at Night after Looking for Chang Wu	15
	On the Tower at Uphold All-Gathering Monastery	16
	In Lo-yang, Stopping by to Visit Yuan Kuan without Finding Him	17
	Looking for T'eng's Old Recluse Home	18
	Traveling to Yueh, I Linger Out Farewell with Chang and Shen	19
	7/7 in a Strange Village	20
	Anchoring Overnight at Ox Island ...	21
	Down the Kan River Rapids	22
	9/9 at Dragon-Sands, Sent to Liu	23
	Stopping Overnight at Date-Brights Inn	24
	Autumn Night, Setting Moon	25
	Looking for Mei, Sage Master of Way	26
	Early Plums	27
	At Lumen-Empty Monastery, Visiting Dharma-Guile ...	28
	Encountering Snow on the Road to Ch'ang-an	29
	Overnight at Kingfisher-Hue Monastery ...	30
	Outside the Capital, Farewell to Acrid-Expanse	31
	Lingering Out Farewell with Wang Wei	32
	Year's-End, On Returning to Southern Mountains	33
	Sent to Ch'ao, the Palace Reviser	34
	A Farewell for Tu Huang	35
	Spending the Night at Abbot Yeh's Mountain Home, ...	36
	At Lumen-Empty Monastery, Visiting the Hermitage of ...	37
	After Chang Yuan's Clear Mirror Lament	38
	At the Pavilion on Grand-View Mountain, ...	39
	Adrift at Wu-ling	40
	Anchored off Hsun-yang in Evening Light, ...	41
	Anchored Overnight on Thatch-Hut River ...	42
	Waiting Out Rain at East Slope, ...	43
	Courtyard Oranges	44
	Overnight at Cypress-Peak Monastery ...	45
	Adrift on What-If River	46
	The Ch'an Depths of a Monk at Royal-Patriarch Monastery	47
	Heading West up the Che River, ...	48
	Overnight on Abiding-Integrity River	49
	Up Early at Fish-Creek Lake	50
	New Year's Eve at Chang Tzu-jung's House in Lo-ch'eng	51
	Anchored Overnight near the City Wall at Hsuan-ch'eng	52
	Upriver to Wu-ch'ang	53
	Below South Mountain, Inviting a Sage Gardener to Plant Melons	54
	Climbing Deer-Gate Mountain, Thoughts of Ancient Times	55
	Returning Home to Deer-Gate Mountain at Night	56
	After Visiting Thought-Essence Monastery, I Return ...	57
	Looking for the Master at Chrysanthemum Pond ...	58
	Climbing Grand-View Mountain with Friends	59
	On Peak-Light Tower with Prime Minister Chang Chiu-ling	60
	Out on the Road, Skies Clearing	61
	At Tung-t'ing Lake, Sent to Yen Fang	62
	On Returning to My Mountains, for the Ch'an Abbot Clarity-Deep	63
	On a Journey to Thought-Essence Monastery, ...	65
	Wandering the West Ridge at Phoenix-Grove Monastery	66
	Searching Incense Mountain for the Monk Clarity-Deep	67
	Spring Dawn	68
	Notes	71
	Finding List	78
	Further Reading	81

Editorial Reviews

Hinton’s music is subtle, modulated, and does not slacken with either contemporary or classic. He has listened to the individual tone of each poet, and his craft is equal to his perception. . . . He continues to enlarge our literary horizon. And the ‘range of pleasure’ his translations afford ‘as sight, sound, and intellection,’ proves them true poems. Poems that breathe another culture into our English. —The Academy of American Poets

These are poems of great serenity, great satisfaction, great joy. The Mountain Poems of Meng Hao-Jan can be read in an evening, revisited for a lifetime. Find time for it. —Kansas City Star

From the Publisher