C O P P E R C A N Y O N P R E S S 2016
49
Woods and springs make me smile
no kitchen smoke for miles
clouds rise up from rocky ridges
cascades tumble down
a gibbon's howl makes the path clearer
a tiger's roar transcends the world
pine wind sighs so softy
birds discuss singsong
I walk the winding streams
and climb the peaks alone
sometimes I sit on a boulder
or lie down and gaze at trailing vines
but when I see a distant town
all I hear is noise
Shih-te
B I L L P O R T E R R E D P I N E
A book like no other, but then Bill Porter/translator Red Pine (one in the same fellow)
is like no other. A treasury of a book that will take the reader many readings to fully hold as we travel with Bill on his pilgrimages throughout China, paying visits and homages with cups of Kentucky whiskey, perhaps a poem read at the site, certainly a bow, to dozens of China's greatest poets. He will break some bones getting there, wait with good healing and patience months to return on his journey, but finish and completeness there is. You will feel it with him. There is no translator, or even a living poet I know of, who brings you fully into the embrace.
[ BA ]
A book like no other, but then Bill Porter/translator Red Pine (one in the same fellow)
is like no other. A treasury of a book that will take the reader many readings to fully hold as we travel with Bill on his pilgrimages throughout China, paying visits and homages with cups of Kentucky whiskey, perhaps a poem read at the site, certainly a bow, to dozens of China's greatest poets. He will break some bones getting there, wait with good healing and patience months to return on his journey, but finish and completeness there is. You will feel it with him. There is no translator, or even a living poet I know of, who brings you fully into the embrace.
[ BA ]
