Dao House... Daoist Poetry

Dao House...

Daoist Poetry

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The T'ang Dynasty and the Tao

Basics

www.tonykline.co.uk/PITBR/Chinese/AllwaterTang.htm

Laozi

Long, flowing, beautiful essay by translator/writer A. S. Kline on East and West, history and physics, Daoism, Buddhism, Confucianism - and, especially, the great Tang poets.

Zhuangzi

Metaphysics

"If the pliant, bowing and modest bamboo represents Confucianism, and the scented solitary ancient pine-tree represents meditative Buddhism, it is the plum-branch that represents Taoism. It is the tree of winter whose blossoms burst from the branch, whose sexual essence is the life and sadness of the transient world, whose flowering is spontaneous and free, whose roots are deep and resilient, but whose beauty is evanescent and delicate."

http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jgr6/203/unit04/explidit.htm

Political

Online class by John Rothfork (Northern Arizona University) distinguishes the Daoist poetry of Tao Qian (Tao Ch'ien) and Li Bai (Li Po) from the Confucian poetry of Du Fu and Buddhist poetry of Li Qingzhao (Li Ch'ing-chao).

Art

Poetry

"Notice the paradox of Daoists so elegantly declaring their ignorance! Tao Ch'ien says he knows nothing -- 'bare rooms' instead of libraries. Yet the elegance of the poem belies the claim of being a 'bare room.' Unless we are militant Confucians, it is not necessary to attempt to drive the Daoists to admit such contradictions."

The Art of Writing: Teachings of the Chinese Masters

http://web.whittier.edu/barnstone/ARTOFWRITING.HTM

Excerpt from the preface of the 1990 book, edited by Tony Barnstone (Whittier College, writer, poet, translator) and Chou Ping (writer, translator), which highlights classic Daoist poets.

"Taoist contradictions are ever present, as the creating writer is urged to destroy. Like William Faulkner bluntly telling writers to kill their darlings, a piece in Song Zijing's collection reads, 'Whenever I see my own work I want to burn the poems I hate. Mei Yaochen congratulates me. "You have made progress."'"

Five Lectures on Chinese Poetry

http://baruchim.narod.ru/LuZhiwei.html

Engaging 1934 lecture series by Lu Zhiwei (1894-1970, noted psychologist and linguist, one of the original developers of Pinyin). Lecture I introduces the forms and quirks of Chinese poetry. Li Bai and other Dao-inspired poets are prominently featured in Lectures III and IV. From a Russian website.

"When Li Bai died in 762 A.D., his remote cousin, Li Yang Bing, gathered together the remnants of his works... He bemoaned the fact that nine-tenths of the poet's writing had been lost... For a man who knows for sure that his writings are to be immortal, the careless way [Li] disposes of them seems inconceivable."

Tang Dynasty Poems: Visions of Paradise

www.pureinsight.org/node/918

Essay by Li Xiao Kui from the Pure Insight (Falun Dafa) website focuses on spiritual dimensions of Tang poetry. Includes poems by Li Bai and other Daoist poets.

"It is evident in the Tang dynasty poetry that to be a human being on Earth is not the sole purpose of life. Tang people understood that reaching the happiness of heaven through cultivation and Consummation is the goal to be achieved."

A Path to Meaning in T'ang Poetry

www.itsaboutimewriters.homestead.com/CraftIdore.html

2006 presentation by Idore Anschell (writer, Seattle) focuses on two Daoist poets, Li Bai and Yu Xuang.

"...from Imperial times in China, all children, including children now in Taiwan, have been required to memorize and recite the same poems... The first universally required poem for all children to learn is 'Quiet Night,' by Li Bai."

The Poetics of Ch'an: Upaayic Poetry and Its Taoist Enrichment

http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/fULLTEXT/JR-BJ001/sandra2.htm

Long, well-written journal article by Sandra A. Wawrytko (San Diego State University). Section II (pp. 347-358) traces "Poetic Precursors in the Taoist Tradition" in the Ch'an (Zen) Buddhist use of poetry, including Juan Ji (Ruan Ji) and Tao Qian.

"The name Mother of the Ten Thousand Things applies to Tao as Being (yu), that is, the 'manifest forms' that are subject to linguistic analysis and fixation. These correspond to the limits of cognition and intellect. But it also has another name, 'Nothingness' (wu) as 'origin of Heaven and Earth.' In the latter sense we are into the realm of the wondrous (miao)... How are we to communicate such things? The Taoist invites us to soar on the wings of poetry."

Jia Yi: "The Owl"

http://academic.hws.edu/chinese/huang/asn209/poetry2.htm

The 2nd-century BCE poet draws on Laozi and Zhuangzi in writing of the vagaries of fate. Translated by James R. Hightower. This page from Chi-Chiang Huang (Hobart and William Smith colleges, Asian Languages and Culture, Geneva, NY) also includes Ruan Ji's "Poems of My Heart" and Tao Qian's "The Return."

"On the Great Potter's wheel creatures are shaped in all their infinite variety. / Heaven cannot be predicted, the Way cannot be foretold..."

Juan Chi [Ruan Ji]: Long ago there was an immortal man

http://allpoetry.com/opoem/30196-Juan-Chi-Long-ago-there-was-an-immortal-man

Poem by one of the "Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove." Read a bit of biography here (click "Read full description").

"Long ago there was an immortal man / who lived on the slope of Shooting Mountain / riding clouds..."

Yuan Jie [Ruan Ji]: To the Tax-Collectors After the Bandits Retreat

http://afpc.asso.fr/wengu/wg/wengu.php?l=Tangshi&no=26

Translated by Witter Bynner. From the Wengu site of Chinese classics (France), in Chinese and English. See also his "A Drinking Song at Stone-Fish Lake."

"Oh let me fling down my official seal, / Let me be a lone fisherman in a small boat / And support my family on fish and wheat / And content my old age with rivers and lakes!"

Chi K'ang [Ji Kang]: Taoist Song

www.allspirit.co.uk/taoistsong.html

Ji (223-262), musician, poet, philosopher, was one of the most important of the Seven Sages. Translated by Arthur Waley.

"Always repenting of harms done / Will never bring my heart to rest. / I cast my hook in a single stream."

T'ao Ch'ien [Tao Qian, 6 poems]

www.tonykline.co.uk/PITBR/Chinese/AllwaterTaoChien.htm

Fifth-century poems, translated by A. S. Kline.

"It was in my nature to love the hills and mountains. / Mindlessly I was caught in the dust-filled trap. / Waking up, thirty years had gone."

Tao Qian: Five Poems of Returning to Fields and Garden Homes

http://gator.dt.uh.edu/~chong/CPoetry/tq2p1.htm

Translated by Lu-sheng Chong (Director, Chinese Cultural Learning Center, Seattle). Includes Chinese characters and pinyin, plus brief commentary. Three more here.

"In the morning I get up and plow the weeds... and carrying the hoe, I return home with the moon."

Tao Qian [5 poems]

http://williampcoleman.wordpress.com/tao-qian/

As rendered by William P. Coleman (mathematics consultant, writer, photographer, Annapolis).

"The dark chamber -- once it's already closed, / in a thousand years, the dawn will not come again."

Tao Qian (365 or 372 - 427)

http://web.whittier.edu/academic/english/Chinese/Taoqian.htm

Excerpt from The Anchor Book of Chinese Poetry Web Companion site, hosted by Whittier College, includes brief text and two verses from "Twenty Poems on Drinking Wine," translated by Tony Barnstone and Chou Ping.

"...he is primarily known as a poet of nature, China's first great landscape poet, and in his work an opposition developed between nature's purity and simplicity (exemplified by his own self-representation as a farmer sage) and the 'dusty' world of the court and the marketplace."

T'ao Ch'ien: Returning to the Fields and Gardens (II)

www.thedrunkenboat.com/chiensze.htm

Translated by Arthur Sze, from The Drunken Boat site.

"Evening dew moistens my clothes; / but so what if my clothes are wet - / I choose not to avoid anything that comes."

The Taoist Vision: A Study of T'ao Yuan-ming's Nature Poetry

http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-JOCP/jc96112.htm

Journal article by Angela Jung Palandri (University of Oregon) traces the Daoist threads in Tao Qian's (also known as T'ao Yuan-ming/Tao Yuanming) poetry. Includes sample poems, most translated by the author.

"Unlike Wordsworth, T'ao Yuan-ming did not seem to have to 'toil' to find the truth, or the Tao, in his life. He simply lived it, by returning to Nature. Since his resignation from public service, and his rejection of those social values which tied him down, the poet was able to 'return home' to his natural habitat, free from all outside pressures or the need to conform, free to follow the dictates of his own nature."

The Works of Li Po [Li Bai], the Chinese Poet [124 poems]

http://repo.lib.virginia.edu:18080/fedora/get/uva-lib:4117/uva-lib-bdef:100/getFullView

E-text of the 1922 volume includes Shigeyoshi Obata's Introduction and his translation of 124 Li Bai poems, plus biographical notes, and eight poems about Li Bai. From the University of Virginia Digital Collection.

"The older he grew, the stronger became the hold of Taoism on his mind." [Obata, Introduction]

Li Po [20 poems]

http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/Poetry/Li_Po/

Translated by Sam Hamill, Arthur Waley, and Ezra Pound, plus an essay by Waley on "Li Po and Alchemy." From Cosma Rohilla Shalizi's (University of Wisconsin, Physics) homepage.

"Snatch the joys of life as they come and use them to the full; Do not leave the silver cup idly glinting at the moon." [tr. Arthur Waley]

Li Po [12 poems]

www.humanistictexts.org/LiPo.htm

Translated by Shigeyoshi Obata, with a brief biography of the 6th-century poet.

"Let us pledge a freindship no mortals know, / And often hail each other at evening / Far across the vast and vaporous space!"

Seventeen Lyrics by Li Po

www.corporeal.com/lyrical.html#lipo

From the musical compositions of Harry Partch (1901-74), translated by Shigeyoshi Obata. (Scroll midway down.) On the Harry Partch Foundation site.

"What am I to do so late in my years / But sing away and let alone the imperial gate of gold."

Li Po [23 poems]

www.tonykline.co.uk/PITBR/Chinese/AllwaterLiPo.htm

Translated by A. S. Kline.

"You ask me why I live on Green Mountain - / I smile in silence and the quiet mind."

Li Po [10 poems]

www.poetry-chaikhana.com/P/PoLi/index.htm

From the Poetry Chaikhana ("tea house") site, translated by Alley, Hamill, Waley, Seth, and Hope, including offerings from the latter two that are not available through other links here.

"I lift my head and watch the moon. / I drop my head and think of home." [tr. Vikram Seth]

Li Po Poems [17 poems]

www.poetseers.org/the_great_poets/li_po/

Obata, Hamill, Alley, Kline, Waley, and Bynner, each poem accompanied by a beautiful photo. From Richard Pettinger's (Oxford Sri Chinmoy Center, UK) Poet Seers site.

"At evening I make it down the mountain. / Keeping company with the moon." [tr. A. S. Kline]

Li Bai [8 poems]

http://williampcoleman.wordpress.com/li-bai/

William P. Coleman's version.

"My heart is a traveler, washing in a flowing river, / echoing sound emitted by an ice-cold bell."

Li Bai (701 - 762) [4 poems]

http://web.whittier.edu/academic/english/Chinese/Libai.htm

Entry from The Anchor Book of Chinese Poetry includes interesting commentary and four poems translated by Tony Barnstone, Willis Barnstone, and Chou Ping.

"His colloquial speech, and confessional celebration of a sensual flamboyance and fallible self made him the best loved and most imitated Chinese poet in English and helped to establish a conversational, intimate tone in modern American poetry."

Li Po [3 poems]

www.thedrunkenboat.com/lipo.htm

Translated by Sam Hamill, from The Drunken Boat online literary journal.

"We sit together, the mountain and me, until only the mountail remains."

Li Po [2 poems]

www.thedrunkenboat.com/lipsze.htm

Translated by Arthur Sze, from The Drunken Boat.

"By our door where you left footprints, / mosses, one by one, grow over; / too deep to be swept away!"

Li Po: Parting

www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/749.html

Compares translations by Sam Hamill, Ezra Pound, Amy Lowell and Florence Ayscough (and one from "Ito, Ryusuke" in the comments). The Minstrels site also contains Li Bai's "The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter" (Pound), "About To Fu" (Hamill, also includes an excerpt from the Encyclopedia Britannica entry on Li Bai), "To To Fu from Shantung" (Hamill), "Self-Abandonment" (Waley), "In the Quiet Night" (Seth), and "Question and Answer in the Mountains" (Seth).

"Drifting clouds like a wanderer's mind; / sunset, like the heart of your old friend." [tr. Sam Hamill]

Li Bo [Li Bai]: After Story

http://lian.com/HIRANO/favor/li_bo02.htm

Hirano, Hideaki (Hosei University, Tama, Japan, Sociology) offers four Li Bai poems translated by Kenneth Hope, with commentary. See also Hirano's own rendition of some Li Bai lines, plus the aforementioned "after story" here.

"...there is another English translation by Ezra Pound... [Kenneth Hope] feels Ezra Pound's, although a good one of course, tend a little bit too Confucian. Frankly, he believes Li Bo had amplitude of Taoism..."

Li Bai: Several Translations of One Poem

www.chinapage.org/poem/libai/libai-trs.html

Fourteen, to be exact, including by Greg Whincup, Wai-Lim Yip, and Herbert A. Giles. The poem: "Farewell to Meng HaoRan."

"Your sail, a single shadow, becomes one with the blue sky, / Till now I see only the river, on its way to heaven." [tr. Witter Bynner and Kiang Kang-hu]

Introduction to Li Po, the fu (rhapsody) style, and the Great Hunt Rhapsody

www.larsonweb.com/Poetry/LiPo/Introduction.htm

Kai Larson (businessman, mountaineer, gamer) introduces a lesser-known work of Li Bai, a long poem in the fu style, written for the imperial court. With copious notes. Warning: "may not be suitable for members of PETA."

"Felling the lavender duck in the cloudy blue, drowning the wild swan-geese in the purple void..."

Cathay

http://paintedricecakes.org/languagearts/poetry/cathay_pound.html

Ezra Pound's loose rendition of classic Chinese poetry includes nine by Li Bai (here rendered in Japanese as Rihaku) and one by Tao Qian (T'ao Yuan Ming). Presented by Alan Davis-Drake (Lakewood High School, NJ, English). And you can download audio recordings of the poems, read by Davis-Drake.

"Peach boughs and apricot boughs hang over a thousand gates, / At morning there are flowers to cut the heart."

A Floating Life

http://olimu.com/Journalism/Texts/Reviews/LiPo.htm

Book review by John Derbyshire of this "mock-biography" of Li Bai, by Simon Elegant. (I thoroughly enjoyed this book!)

"'Very well then,' he says, settling back into the cushioned prow, 'I will tell you what happened at court. But first we must row out into the sunlight. For this is not a story to be told in the dark.'"

Li Bai Strolling

www.chinapage.org/painting/liangkai/liangkai2.html

And here's a painting of Li Bai by Liang Kai, 13th century artist. Probably looks nothing like the master poet, but I thought you'd enjoy it anyway.

Poetry of Han Shan

www.chinapage.com/poet-e/hanshan2e.html

Four poems from the 8th-century (?) Buddho-Daoist poet, also known as Cold Mountain. Translated by Gary Snyder, Burton Watson, and Red Pine.

"And today I've come home to Cold Mountain / To pillow my head on the stream and wash my ears." [tr. Gary Snyder]

Han-shan (Cold Mountain)

www.poetry-chaikhana.com/H/HanshanColdM/index.htm

The Poetry Chaikhana site has a brief bio and eight poems, also translated by Snyder, Watson, and Red Pine. And here are several poems of Han Shan's companion Shih-te (Pickup.)

"You have seen the blossoms among the leaves; / tell me, how long will they stay? / Today they tremble before the hand that picks them; / tomorrow they wait someone's garden broom." [tr. Burton Watson]

The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain [Han Shan]

http://lorenwebster.net/In_a_Dark_Time/archives/000676.html

This entry from Loren Webster's poetry blog gives excerpts from Red Pine's translation and commentary, plus John Blofield's introductory remarks.

"To my mind, Cold Mountain owed more to Taoism than to Buddhism, so complete was his unconventionality and so profound his empathy with nature." [Blofield]

Cold Mountain - Selected Poems

www.chinapage.org/poet-e/cold-mountain-e.html

Seventeen more Han Shan poems. Translated by Red Pine, from Ming Li Pei's China the Beautiful website.

"And under the trees a white-haired man / Mumbles over his Taoist texts. / Ten years now he hasn't gone home; / He has even forgotten the road he came by."

Han Shan Isn't Dead, He's Just Turned into the Mountain

www.cipherjournal.com/html/barnstone_han_shan.html

Tony Barnstone offers "Some Notes on Translation" attendant to his own and others' efforts to bring the poet's words to life in English. From the Cipher Journal of literary translation.

"Like other great world poets, such as Constantine Cavafy, Rainer Marie Rilke, and Pablo Neruda, his poetry is terrific enough that the individual poems need to be translated again and again until they work in English as the best poems they can be."

He Zhizhang (Ho Chih-chang) (659-744)

www.thedrunkenboat.com/zhizhang.html

An introduction and three poems translated by Tony Barnstone and Chou Ping. From The Drunken Boat literary ezine.

"I left home young and returned old, / accent unchanged, but my hair now thin and gray. / Little kids do not know me at all - / with a big smile they ask, 'Where are you from, Stranger?'"

Lu Tung Pin [Lu Dong Bin]

www.poetry-chaikhana.com/L/LuTungPin/index.htm

Bio and five poems from the 8th-century "Immortal Lu," translated by T. C. Lai.

"People may sit till the cushion is worn through, / But never quite know the real truth: / Let me tell you about the ultimate Tao: / It is here, enshrined within us."

Xue Tao /Hsueh T'ao /Sie Thao /Hung-tu (768-831) [10 poems]

http://home.infionline.net/~ddisse/xuetao.html

Ten poems by Xue, whose work "reflects the Daoist emphasis on spontaneity and simplicity," plus a brief biography and links to other relevant sites, from Dorothy Disse's Other Women's Voices site.

"Women like Green Jade / have long been kept / hidden in secret depths. // And yet, I always write / as I please, / on my scarlet poem-slips."

Xue Tao [6 poems]

www.thedrunkenboat.com/xue.html

Translated by Tony Barnstone and Chou Ping, with a brief biography of "one of the two finest female poets of the Tang dynasty."

"...each cicada's cry blends into the next. / Yet each lives on its own branch."

Ssu-K'ung T'u (or Sikong Tu) A.D. 834-903

http://budbloom.blogspot.com/2006/07/ssu-kung-tu-or-sikong-tu-ad-834-903.html

"Bud Bloom" presents 10 Sikong Tu poems as translated by L. Cranmer-Byng, and the same 10 as revised by Bud.

"I revel in flowers and pay no landlord, / Like a random molecule, / I abide in the ether, / the world my place to dream." [Bud's revision]

Li Shang-yin [12 poems]

www.dpo.uab.edu/~yangzw/lishy1.html

Ninth-century poet, on Wendy Zhengrong Yang's (University of Alabama) page, with a brief biography. In Chinese and English.

"Never let your heart open with the spring flowers: / One inch of loves is an inch of ashes."

Wu Cailan [Wu Ts'ailuan]

www.poetry-chaikhana.com/W/WuCailan/index.htm

Two poems by the 9th-century "revered female Taoist master," translated by Thomas Cleary.

"My mind is like a jade jar of ice, / Never invaded by even half a mote of dust.

Yu Xuanji [Yu Hsuan-chi]

http://home.infionline.net/~ddisse/yuxuanji.html

Six poems, brief biography, and references for the 9th-century "Daoist priestess executed in her mid-twenties." From the Other Women's Voices site, maintained by Dorothy Disse.

"For now, in happy times like these, / Even small talents live at ease." [tr. Geoffrey Waters]

The Clouds Float North: The Complete Poems of Yu Xuan Ji

http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/chinese/yu/index.html

Made available by the University of Virginia Library's Chinese Text Initiative. All 49 of Yu's poems, plus a substantial introduction by David Young.

"In fact, the Tang Dynasty happens to have been a time when women had greater freedom of choice and social mobility than was the case both earlier and later. This had partly to do with the character and lineage of the ruling Li family, and partly to do with the widespread interest in Daoism, which had become the official state religion. Daoist philosophy has always emphasized equality of being..."

Su Dongpo (Su Shi) (1036 - 1101)

http://web.whittier.edu/academic/english/Chinese/sudongpo.htm

Excerpt from The Anchor Book of Chinese Poetry features text and several poems translated by Tony Barnstone and Chou Ping, including a "word game" poem rendered forwards and backwards.

"His poems are informed by a knowledge of Daoism and Chan (Zen) Buddhism, and like that earlier mystical farmer-poet, Tao Qian, he was contented on his farm, retired from the poliitical world."

Sun Bu-er /Sun-Pu-erh (c.1119-c.1182)

http://home.infionline.net/~ddisse/sunbuer.html

Includes links to online sites featuring Sun Buer's poems, plus four from Thomas Cleary's Immortal Sisters. Her poems focus on inner alchemy.

"Within essence there will suddenly appear / An image of light; / When you know that, / You yourself are it."

Sun Buer

www.poetry-chaikhana.com/S/SunBuer/index.htm

Brief bio and six poems, translated by Jane Hirshfield and Cleary.

"Diligently polished, the mirror of the mind / Is as bright as the moon; / The universe in a grain / May rise, or it may hide." [tr. Thomas Cleary]

Historical Legend of Sun Bu-er

www.earlywomenmasters.net/masters/buer/index.html

Sarah L. Whitworth's Early Women Masters site has Eva Wong's translation of a 16th-century account of the legendary "Immortal Sister." Excerpt from Seven Taoist Masters: A Folk Novel of China. See also five Sun Buer poems here (Cleary translations).

"Sun Bu-er lived in the city of Loyang for twelve years. She attained the Tao and acquired powerful magical abilities. One day she said to herself, 'I have lived in Loyang for a long time. Now I have attained the Tao, I should demonstrate the powers of the Tao to the people,' Sun Bu-er took two withered branches and blew at them softly. Instantly the two branches transformed into a man and a woman."

Basho and the Dao [book review/interview]

www.poetrylives.com/SimplyHaiku/SHv3n4/reviews/Basho_Peipei-Qiu.html

Writer Robert D. Wilson reviews Peipei Qiu's "groundbreaking" book on the 17th-century haiku master, which traces the role of the Zhuangzi in the development of haiku poetry. From the Simply Haiku site, which also includes Wilson's interview of Qiu here.

"...an important book... that goes beyond a surface recognition of the Daoist influence on Japanese poetry. And because [Qiu] is from China and speaks fluent Chinese, Japanese, and English, combined with a solid background in Chinese and Japanese literature, she has insight into the subject that few scholars today have."

Wu Tsao [Wu Zao], 19th Century

www.sappho.com/poetry/wu_tsao.html

Brief biography and three poems (translated by Kenneth Rexroth and Ling Chung) of the lesbian poet who became a Daoist priestess. On Alix North's (writer, consultant, voice actor) Isle of Lesbos site.

"On your slender body/ Your jade and coral girdle ornaments chime / Like those of a celestial companion / Come from the Green Jade City of Heaven."

Wordsworth's 'hsu': towards a Taoist reading of Tintern Abbey

www.arts.ualberta.ca/~dmiall/TinternRev/MacLean_1.htm

Essay by Mike MacLean, student of David S. Miall (University of Alberta, Canada, English), finds reflections of Daoist Oneness in the poem. For a version that lines up poem and text, go here and click "mysticism.".

"In my view, a Taoist reading of 'Tintern Abbey' must take its leave in the vicinity of line 112. For at this point the poet's voice is far too 'loud' to sustain the sort of reading I've been striving for thus far. By introducing Dorothy, Wordsworth shatters the mystic's vital solitude..."

Bertold Brecht: "legend of the origin of the book of tao-te-ching..."

www.tao-te-king.org/brecht.htm

Brecht's poem "...on lao-tzu's road into exile," translated by John Willett, side by side with the original German, from Hilmar Klaus's site. And see references to the poem in essays by Ralph Dumain (information specialist and independent scholar) and Joan Davies (York University, Toronto, Sociology).

"...a customs man made them report. / 'what valuables have you to declare there?' / and the boy leading the ox explained: 'the old man taught'. / nothing at all, in short."

A Letter From Li Po

www.van-osch.com/lipobrf.htm

Wonderful long poem of loss and change, by Conrad Aiken. Take your time... From a Dutch Li Bai website (this page in English).

"And they are here, Li Po and all the others, / our fathers and our mothers; the dead leaf's footstep / touches the grass: those who were lost at sea / and those the innocents the too-soon dead: / all mankind / and all it ever knew is here in-gathered, / held in our hands and in the wind..."

At Home in Exile: "The Liquid I"

http://members.netbistro.com/iankluge/theliquidi.htm

And if you love Aiken's poem, this wonderful essay by Ian Kluge (poet, playwright, Prince George, British Columbia) will really open it up for you. Again, take your time.

"'A Letter from Li Po', one of Conrad Aiken's last major poems, crystallizes his beliefs about the individual's place in a Heraclitean universe in which relentless change constantly subverts our sense of identity. Through his reflections on the true nature of the self, Aiken shows how we can attain a state of mind that accepts and even embraces our situation despite temptations to view it as devoid of all meaning. Like Li Po, we must not despair but rather understand that if we are 'exiles born', then we must learn to be at home in exile."

Keeping Faith: The Narrative Metaphysical Poems of Harold Stewart

www.nembutsu.info/keeping.htm

Article by Barry Leckenby, from the Journal of Shin Buddhism. Yes, Stewart, who died in 1995, was a Buddhist poet, but the article discusses the Daoist elements in his "great epic poem Autumn Landscape - Roll: A Divine Panorama" (mid-way down). And the entire poem can be found starting here.

"With great economy he describes how the apparently conflicting dual forces cooperate to achieve the nondual Way of Taoism. The process of counterchange demonstrates how absolute positions are unnecessary in the matrix of change; the 'cyclic chase' demoting any notion of independence. In the course of this counterchange, the Taoist is to follow Nature and in so doing fulfil his/her own nature."

The Dao of Wallace Stevens

http://knitandcontemplation.typepad.com/dao_wallace_stevens/2004/08

This section of Karen Mattern's (knitter and contemplative, Berkeley) blog "looks at the poetry of Wallace Stevens, from a background of the humanities and daoist studies." These initial entries from August 2004 have the most to say on Daoism, with commentary on three Stevens poems.

"Whenever I read Wallace Stevens, I find myself thinking of the difference between daoist and confucian perspectives on life. So, I thought it would deepen my understanding, on more than one front, to comment on his poems, prose - and on his critics - from the daoist point of view, as near as I can come to it."

In a Calabash. A Chinese Myth of Origins

www.fengshuigate.com/calabash/introduction.html

Stephen Field's (Trinity University, San Antonio) epic 12-part original poem about Chinese mythology, beautifully presented and introduced. A major achievement.

"A bloated sack, / A calabash, / A wineskin bulging at the seams. / Ten thousand aeons / For his macrocosmic body, / Bag of space, / To turn itself completely inside-out."

Arthur Sze

www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/52

From The Academy of American Poets site, a brief biography and four poems.

"If, in deep emotion, we are / possessed by the idea of possession, // we can never lose to recover what is ours."

The Redshifting Web: Poems 1970-1998, Arthur Sze

www.raintaxi.com/online/1998fall/sze.shtml

Tony Barnstone reviews this "fine collection of poems," pointing out Sze's synthesis of ancient and modern. From the Raintaxi Online Review of books.

"Sze's early poems about the great Chinese poets Wang Wei and Li Po signal, however, that he is looking past... English language aesthetic manifestations to the Chinese source. Indeed, Sze is a very talented translator of Chinese poetry, and it's clear that in his early work he learned a lot from meditating on the lines of the great Chinese masters."

Poets, Tradition, and Particularity

www.history.uncc.edu/jmflower/chapter4htm.htm

Chapter four of John Flower's (UNC at Charlotte, East Asian History) dissertation, "Constructions of Chinese Cultural Identity in the 'Two Worlds' of City and Countryside in Modern Sichuan Province." The final section presents a Daoist framework for a "post-avant guard" movement.

"At conferences in Xi'an and Beijing, professor Tu presented a historical analysis of Chinese philosophy, arguing that Daoism has been the main root on which new developments of Chinese thought-- from Indian Buddhism to Western dialectical materialism-- have been 'grafted.' Confucianism, in this view, has proved a sterile environment..."

Yang Lian

www.nzepc.auckland.ac.nz/authors/yang/

Noted Chinese poet, now a New Zealand citizen. See Mabel Lee's (University of Sydney, Chinese Studies) interview of Yang here.

"go back to the limit like limitlessness / going back to the cliffs storm heads all around / your piper doomed to go on playing / after your death..." [tr. Brian Holton]

Poet captures Taoist's spirit in 'Monastery'

http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2001/Nov/10/il/il02a.html

Wanda A. Adams (Honolulu Advertiser) reviews Eric Paul Shaffer's poetry collection, Living at the Monastery, Working in the Kitchen, inspired by Shih-te, who was:

"...famous in Taoist annals as the companion of the master Han-shan. Abandoned and orphaned, Shih-te is given a home at the [Buddhist-Daoist] monastery called Cold Mountain. There, he turned a skeptical eye on the monks, who seemed to him to be chasing enlightenment so hard and missing it at every turn."

9 Irreverent Poems from the Monastery Kitchen

www.hundredmountain.com/Pages/poetry_pages/fall01_ninepoems.html

Two-page write-up includes nine poems from Shaffer's book. From the Hundred Mountain online journal.

"With no master, / I have none to visit / in Autumn, when wind blows / six-petaled blossoms from the West. // Under only clouds and stars, / I lie on steps before the kitchen door, / fart and scratch myself / like any Buddha."

The Tao is Tao

www.truetao.org/articles/taoistao.htm

From Jos Slabbert (Namibia), 188 short poems. More of Jos's poems here.

"82. The person close to Tao / lives / without hope / and is never disappointed. / Her thankfulness / knows / no bounds."

33 Poems on the History of the World

http://janhaag.com/PO2001-8.html

Poems on the Daodejing (first one about a quarter way down) by Jan Haag, poet, film director, actress, artist, peace activist. She wrote five poems on the DDJ before giving up on it. (It was here I learned that R. L. Wing is a woman.) See more poems with a Daoist theme in Haag's "The 2002 Accumulations."

"I now have 13 translations from the library. Is there one / that speaks to me?"

Culture, Art & Tao

www.context.org/ICLIB/IC05/Fisher.htm

By Lizanne Fisher (poet, artist, dancer, Intercultural Consultant, Vancouver). From In Context, an online Quarterly of Human Sustainable Culture.

"Art is the Tao / come / full circle through the spiderweb of Culture into the / Light of knowing."

The Real Human Beings

http://members.tripod.com/~the_hermitage/real.htm

From Robert Dodd (graphic artist), some verses inspired by Wenzi (Wen Tzu). [Popup alert]

"Regarding energy as greater than / ideas, they speak little: / for strength is easy to lose and / difficult to gain."

Tao Song

www.tao-art.de/Art1.html

Poem accompanied by painting, by artist/poet von Arupam Ingerfurth (Freiburg).

"I am going to the tao-trees, / To be in love with them..."

Chuang Tzu's Dream

http://tarlton.law.utexas.edu/lpop/etext/lsf/28/reiter.html

By writer/poet Jendi Reiter (Northampton, MA). Fom a Tarleton Law Library etext, Off the Record: An Anthology of Poetry by Lawyers. (Second poem on the page.)

"The world we know / is a butterfly's dream / yet Nature squanders millions of golden wings / in a single tempest."

Sipping Master Chuang

www.oocities.org/solarguard/china/chtzu.html

Michael McKenny's (fantasy writer) "response to the first 14 books of Master Chuang" (Zhuangzi).

"To run in fields, the horses way; / No use have they for golden hall; / To be content, the way of all, / Before we learned to strive, to stray."

T im Bellows: "Watercolors. One Taoist Immortal"

www.slowtrains.com/vol5issue1/bellowsvol5issue1.html

Scroll down a bit to read Bellow's (Sierra College, Rocklin, CA) luminous poem. From the Slow Trains literary ezine.

"he sits out back on the low stone wall- / in the urgency of the light... / in love with / the unremitting toil of running across the sky."

The I Ching Sonnets

www.oocities.org/Tokyo/Towers/6662/sonnets.htm

By Clif Bennett, adapted for the web by Alan Taplow, who notes, "I was taken with what the I Ching inspired in Clif - to me they have an almost Chuang Tzu quality." I too was taken with these sonnets, one for each of the 64 Yijing (I Ching) hexagrams, plus preface.

"The guards will say: Prince Chi is not entirely mad; / He hums and whistles - look, by the early candle, / In the silence of his cell he writes a lovepoem!"

The Tao of Desire

www.poetryflash.org/archive.283.Woloch.html

Cecilia Woloch (poet) reviews Karen Holden's Book of Changes, poems based on the Yijing. From the Poetry Flash online poetry review.

"The fusion of the sensual and the spiritual is what appeals to me most in these poems, where I had half expected the asceticism and asexuality I encounter in so much of the contemporary poetry that claims Eastern mysticism as its inspiration... I hadn't suspected that there was any such thing as the Tao of desire, a way to dive deeply into longing and find a still center there, after all."

The Taste of Giving: New and Selected Poems... by Carolyn Zonailo

www.carolynzonailo.com/reviews/10_3.php

Review by Stephen Morrissey (poet, teacher, and Zonailo's husband). (Popup alert.)

"Zonailo's approach here is Taoist, the approach of least resistance. If you struggle against the sea you will be drowned, yet if you can relax then there is the possibility of at least treading water."

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