Larry's Pretty Good Poetry Journal

Last night, he undid my girdle—
Today, a spider hovers here.
I can’t discard my makeup now,
I shouldn’t give up my gaozhen.

玉台体
昨夜裙带解，
今朝蟢子飞。
铅华不可弃，
莫是篙砧归。

The speaker seems to be a concubine or wife whose husband spent the night with her for the first time in a while. The name of the spider (蟢, a type of orb-weaver) is a homonym of 喜, happy event. The gaozhen (literally, wooden anvil, or something like that?) was part of a married woman’s outfit. I’m even less certain about the translation of the title.

Quan Deyu is another only-poem-in-collection poet.

—L.

Her third day, she enters the kitchen,
Washes hands, prepares the soup.
She doesn’t know his mother’s tastes,
So has his sister try it first.

新嫁娘
三日入厨下，
洗手作羹汤。
未谙姑食性，
先遣小姑尝。

Specifically, her husband’s younger sister, because Chinese has finely graded kinship terms like that. This can be read just as easily (if not more) as first person—addressed to the bride is less likely. This is Wang Jian’s only poem in the collection.

—L.

You ask when I’ll return—the when is not yet set.
Night rains on Sichuan mountains swell the autumn pools.
When shall we trim the wick of your west window candle,
While I describe night rains on Sichuan mountains?

夜雨寄北
君问归期未有期，
巴山夜雨涨秋池。
何当共剪西窗烛，
却话巴山夜雨时。

Li Shangyin spent time as an official in Sichuan (here called by an old name, Ba). The first “you” is the only explicit pronoun, though trimming the wick is also explicity done together.

I jumped ahead to a famous poem by the last great Tang poet, to see what a seven-character line feels like. First impression: looser than the five-character line, enough so it almost feels discursive.

—L.

Can a lone cloud, a wild crane,
Dwell within the world of men?
Don’t go buying Wozhou Mountain—
People already know that place.

送上人
孤云将野鹤，
岂向人间住。
莫买沃洲山，
时人已知处。

Wozhou is in Zhejiang Province, and apparently there was a popular Buddhist temple there. (The title used for the addressee is specifically for Buddhist monks.) I do not understand the bit about buying—a place in the temple? But I’ve not heard of a practice like that. This by way of saying, treat this translation as even less reliable than average.

—L.

Dark green, the bamboo forest temple;
Somber, a bell toll in the dusk.
You wear your broad-brim hat at sunset,
Returning alone to far green hills.

送灵澈
苍苍竹林寺，
杳杳钟声晚。
荷笠带斜阳，
青山独归远。

Context suggests that Ling Che is on a Buddhist pilgrimage, thus “you” as the implied pronoun. There’s a lot of semantic play in the original, little of which comes through in my version. Liu Changqing has 11 poems in this collection.

---L.

His exploits covered the Three Kingdoms,
His Eight-Unit Formation brought him fame.
The river flows, rocks are immobile—
His lasting regret: not seizing Wu.

八阵图
功盖三分国，
名成八阵图。
江流石不转，
遗恨失吞吴。

The Three Kingdoms is literally the “three-part kingdom,” referring to the breakup of the Han Dynasty empire; Wu is the one to the southeast, centered below the lower Yangtze. The “he” (pronoun unstated but assured by historical references) is Zhuge Liang, prime minister of Shu (upper Yangtze) who, despite his legendary strategic genius, didn’t win the game of thrones because of his kings’ bad decisions.

I don’t see a good way of making the first two lines poetic, not without a lot of padding. Ditto, avoiding lots of glossing/endnotes. OTOH, sticking to my short meter is forcing “seizing” instead of the better “conquering” so maybe I should redo this with longer lines.

Du Fu is the other greatest Chinese poet ever. I find it entirely characteristic that he enters this stream with historical moralizing. This isn’t his only poem about Zhuge Liang in the collection, either.

---L.

Before my bed, moonbeams so bright
It looks like frost upon the ground.
I raise my head, gaze at the bright moon;
I lower my head, and think of home.

夜思
床前明月光，
疑是地上霜。
举头望明月，
低头思故乡。

Again, no explicit “I” but it’s the really easy reading, especially given the personal topic of one’s hometown. (Pro-drop languages are so fun.) “It looks like” may be too mild—the original is closer to “(I) mistake it for”. This is sometimes given a raunchy reading: the moonlight-cum-frost is a naked bedmate, the moon(s) her breasts, and home between her legs.

Li Bai is generally considered one of China’s greatest poets ever. In his youth, he was a martial artist wandering the rivers and lakes—at least, so he claimed. Wuxia tropes really are that old.

(BTW, I’m not including pinyin pronunciations because Middle Chinese was significantly different, and there’s no solid agreement on the reconstructed sounds or, especially, tones.)

—L.

A moving boat moored by a misty islet;
Day ends, a traveler’s grief renews.
The plains: vast heaven and low trees—
The river clears and moon nears man.

宿建德江
移舟泊烟渚，
日暮客愁新。
野旷天低树，
江清月近人。

I suspect but don’t know for sure that the actual explicit people would have been understood as first person referents—so the “traveler” would be read as “this traveler,” and so on. “Low” may be a verb: “the vast sky lowers to the trees,” which would be more parallel to the next line. For what it’s worth, there’s a Jiande River in Zhejiang Province, on the coast just south of the Yangtze delta, and a Jiande city with a river a little inland of modern Shanghai.

Meng Haoran was another major Tang poet, influential (including on his friend Wang Wei) for his nature poems foregrounding humans in the landscapes.

My poetic sense is still embryonic, but it thinks this is the best poem I’ve poked at since Deer Enclosure. Wish I could appreciate the sonics, obscured by centuries of sound-changes. (Decent meter, zilch rhyme — ah well.)

—L.

You are returning to the mountain depths
Where beautiful ruggedness awaits.
Don’t take after that man of Wuling
Who just briefly visited Peach Blossom Land.

送崔九
归山深浅去，
须尽丘壑美。
莫学武陵人，
暂游桃源里。

Not trying for tight lines like with Wang Wei because this feels like it lacks the same compression. (That said, the rhythm of “ruggedness” is too off.) Pei Di was a close friend of Wang Wei (Deer Enclosure is from a famous collaboration between the two, Wang River Collection) who has only this poem in 300 Tang Poems. The legend of Peach Blossom Land is related in one of Wang Wei’s longer poems (#78), in which a fisherman finds, up a hidden tributary, a community cut off from the outside world since the Han dynasty, but when he goes home to tell people about it, he couldn’t find the way to return.

---L.

Those red beans growing in the South—
Spring comes, how many on each branch!
I want you, Sir, to pick so many:
They’ll show how much we miss each other.

相思
红豆生南国，
春来发几枝。
愿君多采撷，
此物最相思。

Hóngdòu (红豆, Abrus precatorius) was used as a love token, but given this poem is cited all over when glossing that, I can’t tell if Wang Wei is reflecting or starting the tradition. “Pick so many” is ridiculously prosaic but it’s all I’ve got at the moment. Also, still not king rhymed.

(I should mention that 300 Tang Poems is organized by poetic form. I’m starting with the poems with 4 5-character lines because they’re the shortest and I wanted baby steps. I mean, I don’t want to start with “The Song of Everlasting Regret.”)

—L.