Laughing Lost in the Mountains: Poems of Wang Wei

Wang Wei's poetry is some of the most beautiful I've ever read. His descriptions of the natural world and phenomenon is really delightful. I believe that this translation is one of the best out there.

Perfect w/poems, overview, history

Nicely done. A couple of mistakes in translation but overall still beautiful.

The translations are excellent, standing up as elegant poems in their own right. And the critical introduction is insightful and helpful.

Haunting, beautiful poems from a very long time ago!

Simply beautiful poetry. Timeless.

The Tang dynasty almost always gets pitched as the golden age of Chinese poetry. As much as I'm mildly skeptical of such sweeping characterizations for obscuring as much as they reveal, the poetry of Wang Wei included in "Laughing Lost in the Mountains" provides compelling evidence in favor of this particular generalization. Not that Wang's poetry is as dramatic or charismatic as his better-known peers Li Po or Du Fu. There is a different kind of talent at work here, one that is at once quietly meditative and down to earth, attracted to a hermit lifestyle in the countryside and yet unable to spurn the busy social life of the big city entirely, keenly aware of and yearning for the transcendent especially as it finds expression in the landscapes of nature but still humorously human, all too human. Wang Wei is too honest a poet ever to entirely resolve the tension one way or the other, a tension most of us can probably acutely relate to, and herein lies one key to the subdued power of his work. Then too, his uncanny ability to step back and let his richly observant descriptions of the natural world do his talking for him as an implied presence takes advantage of the syntax of Chinese poetry but to an ironically distinct and personally unique level. Certainly the pervasive influence of Buddhism and Daoism is at work here, and Wang makes no bones about that, but this same trait oddly and, well, somewhat accidentally gives his poems a modern edge.As translations go, the collective work by the father and son team of Willis and Tony Barnstone together with Xu Haixin is superb. Sailing between the Scylla of literal accuracy and the Charybdis of literary readability is always the translator's bane, especially when it comes to poetry, but the results of their labor here strike about as fine a balance as possible. At no point do you get the sense that they're taking unnecessary liberties with Wang Wei's poems and playing fast and loose for the audience, but they do manage with great sensitivity to render them into English as compelling poems in their own right. You're not left guessing why this is great poetry and considered classic, as is sometimes the case. Annotations are sufficient while unobtrusive. The critical introduction is excellent too, giving the reader the necessary biographical and cultural context for the poems in a manner that is at once respectful and yet politely demurs from repeating some of the pious commonplaces that have attached themselves to Wang Wei and his poetics. Their handling of Wang's deep and abiding interest and participation in Buddhism, especially Chan (Zen) Buddhism, does ample justice to the strong religious element in his writing without making a premature Buddha of the man. At times they do rather push their comparison of Wang Wei with the Spanish poets Antonio Machado and Saint John of the Cross just a tad too persistently, though the insight itself seems mostly sound. Their personal account of Wang Wei's vicissitudes in modern China is perceptive and extremely informative, though, just as their accounting of his impact on modern American poetry is illuminating and interesting. Most of all, though, the introduction serves its purpose in introducing the wonderful poems that follow, poems that are a quiet joy to get lost within.

Born around 700 AD, Wang Wei poems are “often described as spoken paintings” (From the excellent introduction). In his poems he seeks to see nature clearly, with his absence, but then paradoxically many of the poems seem to be deeply personal. An example of his nature “Quiet night. All creatures are sleeping./ Interminable sound of cicadas”, but he is also present “No rain on the mountain path/ yet greenness drips on my clothes”. There are also personal Portraitures, for example” Tao Qian really likes to let it all hang out/ and was born mad about wine”. There are also Taoist and Buddhist infusing of quiet and aloneness, for example “In my idle years I love the Tao/ and by Deep South Mountain I make my home” or “Clear wind. Bright moon. Loneliness attacks me.” I found the introduction and the sparse notes on the poems very helpful.