The Poetic Garden of Liu Zongyuan

By Liu Zongyuan and Robert Hass

Liu Zongyuan's remarkable poetry reflects the complex experience of political exile and observes the natural world of his new home in South China with a caring eye.

The Poetic Garden of Liu Zongyuan presents poems by the Tang Dynasty cofounder of the Classical Prose Movement written on the Chinese empire’s southern margins. In these remarkable pieces, Liu intertwines South China’s landscapes and plants—such as scarlet canna, banyan, and white myoga ginger—with reflections on honor, duty, banishment, and belonging in ways unique in the history of Chinese poetry. The two translators, Nathaniel Dolton-Thornton and Yu Yuanyuan, one American and one Chinese, preserve and showcase the singular beauty of Liu's poetic garden for the English-speaking world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Phoneme Media
• Release date: Aug 29, 2023
• ISBN: 9781646052431

Book preview

Cover: The Poetic Garden of Liu Zongyuan by Liu Zongyuan

LIU ZONGYUAN

柳宗元 著

THE POETIC GARDEN

of LIU ZONGYUAN

柳宗元花苑

TRANSLATED BY

Nathaniel Dolton-Thornton

& Yu Yuanyuan

杜尚楠 于元元 译

With a preface by Robert Hass

Logo: Deep Vellum

DALLAS, TEXAS

Phoneme Media, an imprint of Deep Vellum Publishing

3000 Commerce St., Dallas, Texas 75226

Deep Vellum is a 501c3 nonprofit literary arts organization founded in 2013 with the mission to bring the world into conversation through literature.

Translation copyright © 2023 by Nathaniel Dolton-Thornton and Yu Yuanyuan

Preface copyright © 2023 by Robert Hass

First edition 2023

All rights reserved

Support for this publication has been provided in part by grants from Anhui University, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Texas Commission on the Arts, the City of Dallas Office of Arts and Culture, and the George and Fay Young Foundation.

ISBNS: 978-1-64605-217-2 (trade paperback) | 978-1-64605-243-1 (ebook)

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CONTROL NUMBER

2023020026

Cataloging-in-Publication data is available.

Details from the painting Fishing Alone on the Cold River (2013)

appear by permission of the artist, Zhao Chunqiu.

The other images that appear in the book are Two Egrets in a Willow Pond by Huang Shen (1687–1772), Ascending Liuzhou’s Gate Tower: A Poem to the Prefects of Zhangzhou, Tingzhou, Fengzhou, and Lianzhou, calligraphy believed to be by Liu Zongyuan, and Pine and Plum by Pan Tianshou (1897–1971).

Cover design by Nick Motte

Interior layout and typesetting by Kit Schluter

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Contents¹

Preface: Meeting Liu Zongyuan, by Robert Hass

Introduction, by Nathaniel Dolton-Thornton and Yu Yuanyuan

PART ONE: Yongzhou (805–815)

[一、永州 (805–815)]

A POEM COMPOSED IN RETURN FOR THE REVERENT MONK XUN’S GIFT, THE FRESH TEA HE GATHERED FROM AMONG BAMBOO [酬巽上人以竹间自采新茶见赠]

COTTON ROSE PAVILION [芙蓉亭]

BITTER BAMBOO BRIDGE [苦竹桥]

RIVER SNOW [江雪]

SCARLET CANNA [红蕉]

EARLY PLUM [早梅]

PLUM RAINS [梅雨]

PROSPERING TANGERINE TREES IN THE SOUTH [南中荣橘柚]

A PLAYFUL POEM ON A GARDEN PEONY FRONTING THE STEPS [戏题阶前芍药]

ON TRANSPLANTING A COTTON ROSE FROM THE XIANG RIVER’S SHORE TO LONGXING TEMPLE HOUSE [湘岸移木芙蓉植龙兴]

ON TRANSPLANTING SWEET OSMANTHUS TREES FROM HENGYANG TO LINGLING [自衡阳移桂植零陵]

PLANTING WHITE MYOGA GINGER [种白蘘荷]

PLANTING FAIRY WINGS [种仙灵毗]

PLANTING THE TREE OF LONGEVITY [植灵寿木]

PLANTING BAI ZHU [种朮]

AUTUMN DAWN, VISITING SOUTH VALLEY AND PASSING THROUGH AN ABANDONED VILLAGE [秋晓行南谷经荒村]

AFTER AN EARLY SUMMER RAIN, EXPLORING FOOLISH CREEK [夏初雨后寻愚溪]

RAN CREEK [冉溪]

CREEKSIDE LIVING [溪居]

STARTING TO PLANT BAMBOO UNDER MY THATCHED EAVES [茅檐下始栽竹]

NEWLY PLANTED CAMELLIA [新植海石榴]

OLD FISHERMAN [渔翁]

STARTING TO SEE WHITE HAIR: ON THE CAMELLIA [始见白发题海石榴树]

ENTERING YELLOW CREEK, HEARING THE GIBBONS [入黄溪闻猿]

Interlude (815)

[幕间 (815)]

BAMBOO AT CLEAR WATER COURIER STATION[清水驿丛竹]

A LONE PINE OVERLOOKING THE ROAD ONSHANG MOUNTAIN [商山临路孤松]

PART TWO: Liuzhou (815–819)

[二、柳州 (815–819)]

FOR HERMIT JIA PENG: ON TRANSPLANTING A NEW PINE IN THE PREFECTURE TO CONVEY FEELINGS: 1[酬贾鹏山人郡内新栽松寓兴见赠二首一]

FOR HERMIT JIA PENG: ON TRANSPLANTING A NEW PINEIN THE PREFECTURE TO CONVEY FEELINGS: 2[酬贾鹏山人郡内新栽松寓兴见赠二首二]

IN LIUZHOU, SECOND MONTH, THE BANYAN LEAVESHAVE ALL FALLEN: AN OCCASIONAL POEM[柳州二月榕叶落尽偶题]

A PLAYFUL POEM ON PLANTING WILLOWS [种柳戏题]

IN LIUZHOU’S NORTHWEST CORNER, PLANTINGMANDARIN TREES [柳州城西北隅种甘树]

PLANTING NOBLE DENDROBIUM [种木槲花]

Notes

Acknowledgments

Preface: Meeting Liu Zongyuan

ROBERT HASS

I FIRST BECAME AWARE OF LIU ZONGYUAN WHEN NATHANIEL Dolton-Thornton appeared at my office hours in the upper reaches of Wheeler Hall at the University of California at Berkeley. I had been teaching a workshop on the translation of poetry, which I assume is what brought Nathaniel to me. He was, he explained, an environmental science major who was also studying classical Chinese, and he had begun to make translations of this Tang Dynasty poet in part because he was attracted to Liu Zongyuan’s botanical specificity. He had written a lot of poems about gardening. I was, of course, fascinated, and Nathaniel began to visit my office weekly with new poems, so that after a while it