Description:
With The Painful Part of Spring, experience Song-dynasty China through the eyes of its greatest woman poet.
In his latest bilingual collection, The Painful Part of Spring, Red Pine turns to China's greatest and most influential woman poet, Li Qingzhao. Organized chronologically and supplemented by Red Pine's clarifying biographical notes, these poems reveal a lyricism deeply rooted in the seasons of Qingzhao's life--tracing the poet's shift from an audacious teenager in court to a relative recluse following the death of her husband. Set to melodies that have since been lost, Qingzhao's verses see flowers bloom and die; incense, ever-present, creeps and meanders through a room; wine glasses fill and empty while the political machine turns, the winds of her fortune change, and her husband arrives and departs. At last, Qingzhao remarks, "a thousand miles of mountain passes tire a dreamer out." Immersive and emotionally resonant, these poems are especially precious for having survived a literary culture whose preservation was left entirely to men. The Painful Part of Spring is essential reading from one of our most remarkable and noteworthy literary ancestors.
Review Quotes:
Praise for Red Pine
"Tao's impeccable translator Red Pine follows the traditional Chinese practice of offering scholarly commentary for each poem, but what persists in the transmutation to present-day English is less the discord of bygone dynasties than the poet's quest for spiritual harmony, as in the longed-for utopia of "Peach Blossom Spring" "I'll go there as soon as the weather is warmer / hopefully with someone who knows me."--Literary Hub
"The latest work in Red Pine's rich career of translation, Choosing to be Simple: Collected Poems of Tao Yuanming, is a definitive portrait of the early Chinese politician and poet....We are encouraged to find joy in simplicity--the tending of a garden, the sharing of wine with a stranger."--New York Journal of Books
"Bill Porter has been one of the most prolific translators of Chinese texts, while also developing into a travel writer with a cult following."--New York Times
"In the travel writing that has made him so popular in China, Porter's tone is not reverential but explanatory, and filled with luminous asides."--The New York Review of Books
"Red Pine's out-of-the-mainstream work is canny and clearheaded, and it has immeasurably enhanced Zen/Daoist literature and practice."--Kyoto Journal
"With its clarity and scholarly range, this version of the Taoteching works as both a readable text and a valuable resource of Taoist interpretation."--Publishers Weekly
"Red Pine introduces Western readers to both the text itself and the traditions it has inherited."--Virginia Quarterly Review
"Red Pine... has given us the first full collection of Han Shan's songs in an idiom that is clear, graceful, and neutral enough to last... His translations are accurate and mirror the music of the originals..."--Bloomsbury Review
"In Red Pine's hands, these poems are revitalized."--Ellipsis