The Clouds Should Know Me By Now: Buddhist Poet Monks of China - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0861711432 ISBN 13: 9780861711437

Publisher: Wisdom Publications, 1998

Synopsis

This unique collection presents the verse, much of it translated for the first time, of fourteen eminent Chinese Buddhist poet monks. Featuring the original Chinese as well as english translations and historical introductions by Burton Watson, J.P. Seaton, Paul Hansen, James Sanford, and the editors, this book provides an appreciation and understanding of this elegant and traditional expression of spirituality.

"So take a walk with...these cranky, melancholy, lonely, mischievous poet-ancestors. Their songs are stout as a pilgrim's stave or a pair of good shoes, and were meant to be taken on the great journey."--Andrew Schelling, from his Introduction

About this title

About the Author

Mike O'Connor is a poet and translator. He has published three volumes of his own poetry in addition to translating two volumes of the work of Buddhist poet Chia Tao. He lives in Port Townsend, Washington.

Red Pine (Bill Porter) won the 1996 PEN West Award for Guide to Capturing a Plum Blossom, and is a well-known translator of classical Chinese philosophy and poetry, including translations of the Platform Sutra, the Diamond Sutra, and the Lankavatara Sutra. He has lived in Taiwan and Hong Kong and traveled extensively in China. He lives in Port Townsend, Washington.

Andrew Schelling is a poet, essayist, and translator of the poetry of India. He has taught at Naropa University for twenty years and from 1993-96 served as chair of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics founded by Alan Ginsburg and Anne Waldman. His publications include Tea Shack Interior and The Wisdom Anthology of North American Buddhist Poetry. He lives in Boulder, Colorado.

Reviews

The witty introduction to this volume invites us to "take a walk with the Ch'an Buddha-ancestors, these cranky, melancholy, lonely, mischievous poet-ancestors." These poets, Chinese monks of the Ch'an (Zen) tradition who spanned the ninth to the 19th centuries, lived in intimacy with the physical world, many of them in caves or huts in the mountains, and their poems reflect a deep connection to nature. In the 1950s, Gary Snyder made the poetry of the Ch'an poet Han-Shan popular in the West; this volume introduces us to the writings of several others, most of them newly translated into English. The Chinese texts are included. The struggle to quiet the mind, even for these masters, is continually present?and from this struggle come achingly beautiful poems: "Flat Lake cold penetrates water-lily clothes/ the mountain by the lake is neither right nor wrong." In their haunting simplicity, the poems collected here remind us of our oneness with the environment. Highly recommended for all libraries.?Judy Clarence, California State Univ. Lib., Hayward
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Wisdom Publications
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0861711432
• ISBN 13: 9780861711437
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224
• Editor: Pine Red, O'Connor Mike