Just Finished Reading: Three Tang Dynasty Poets [53pp] 

I wasn’t expecting to review a booklet of 8th century Chinese poets today. What I was expecting to review was a short selection of avant-garde works by Gertrude Stein on Food. But just a few pages into that I decided that it was essentially unreadable, or at least that I valued my time/effort in excess of what was required to power my way through her (very) short work. Life is too short and my review pile too small for that sort of thing – so here we are. I had promised myself that I would read ALL of the Penguin short classics, but I have failed. [sobs] Life, and reading, however, goes on. 

THIS short booklet held the works of three poets (from 8th century China) and broke down into three main themes – nature, the missing of/longing for a separated loved one and a few tales of combat from this rather violent age. Generally, I much preferred the nature poems. 

I think the one I liked best was actually the first one – Song of the Peach Tree Spring – where a fisherman stumbles upon an idyllic hidden community and is so entranced that he decides to live there permanently only to discover he can’t find his way back.  

As I’ve said several times now, poetry just isn’t my thing. There has been a vanishing few that have captivated my attention (some of which I memorised, at least in part, decades ago and can still recall with a bit of effort) but generally I see them – much like comic books – as just too short or ephemeral to appreciate. I guess my brain just doesn’t work that way. 

No doubt in either of the boxsets I’m presently working my way through there will be more poetry works to try to engage with. I wonder if any of them will ‘stick’?     

Translated from the Chinese by G W Robinson and Arthur Cooper