Finding Them Gone: Visiting China's Poets of the Past

Bill Porter (Red Pine)

To pay homage to China’s greatest poets, renowned translator Bill Porter—who is also known by his Chinese name “Red Pine”—traveled through China visiting dozens of poets’ graves and performing idiosyncratic rituals that featured Kentucky bourbon and reading poems aloud to the spirits. Combining travelogue, translations, history, and personal stories, this intimate and fast-paced tour of modern China celebrates inspirational landscapes and presents translations of classical poems, many of which have never before been translated into English. Porter is a former radio commentator based in Hong Kong who specialized in travelogues. As such, he is an entertaining storyteller who is deeply knowledgeable about Chinese culture, both ancient and modern, who brings readers into the journey—from standing at the edge of the trash pit that used to be Tu Mu’s grave to sitting in Han Shan’s cave where the Buddhist hermit “Butterfly Woman” serves him tea. Illustrated with over one hundred photographs and two hundred poems, Finding Them Gone combines the love of travel with an irrepressible exuberance for poetry.

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ISBN: 9781556594892

Format: Paperback

Huang T’ing-chien: Writing about Echou’s South Tower

We came back to earth at the Hsiushui exit. Just before we reached the bridge that spanned the Hsiushui River, I asked the driver to pull over. The building on the right was a memorial hall for Huang T’ing-chien (1045–1105). It was perched above the river and looked out on the mountains that surrounded Hsiushui on all sides. It was a lovely setting. As I walked along the corridor outside the hall, I stopped to read one of Huang’s poems carved on a stone tablet. Every Chinese schoolchild knew it by heart, at least until the Communist period. “Writing about Echou’s South Tower” 鄂州南樓書事:
 
Mountain light meets water light everywhere I look
from the tower railing I smell miles of water lilies
the soft wind and bright moon without any help from Man
together from the south bring us something cool
四顧山光接水光，憑欄十里芰荷香。清風明月無人管，幷作南來一味凉。

About the Translator

Bill Porter assumes the pen name Red Pine for his translation work. He was born in Los Angeles in 1943, grew up in the Idaho Panhandle, served a tour of duty in the US Army, graduated from the University of California with a degree in anthropology, and attended graduate school at Columbia University. Uninspired by the prospect of an academic career, he dropped out of Columbia and moved to a Buddhist monastery in Taiwan. After four years with the monks …

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Reviews

“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.” —New York Review 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

“Red Pine’s succinct and informative notes for each poem are core samples of the cultural, political, and literary history of China.” —Asian Reporter

“Red Pine’s out-of-the-mainstream work is canny and clearheaded, and it has immeasurably enhanced Zen/Taoist literature and practice.” —Kyoto Journal