November 20, 2021
Courtesy of translator David Hinton, three more Chinese poets, dating from 365 A.D. to 761, have arrived for tea and poetry readings in my Coffee House of faith. The years are distant, the geography is distant, but for just such reasons, the dialogue has substance. Their images and observations, their collective plights and pleasures, present a clean palate, an unmarked canvas, on which to taste, to paint. Like royal characters in a Shakespearean play, we will conduct our debate in […]
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August 14, 2021
After my encounter with the Chinese Poet, Tu Fu, of the 8th century A.D., courtesy of translator extraordinaire David Hinton, I found ancient Chinese poetry rather habit-forming. One of the great things about creating an imaginary coffee house like mine is its flexibility – anyone interested or interesting can be invited in. As it turns out, a mere four hundred years before Tu Fu, there was a poet, named Hsieh Ling-yun, again introduced to us by David Hinton through his […]
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