Dimensions
109 x 184 x 16mm
The incomparable poetry of Han Shan and his sidekick Shih Te, the rebel poets who became icons of Chinese poetry and Zen, newly translated and annotated by premier translator J. P. Seaton. Popularized in the West by Beat Generation writers Gary Snyder and Jack Kerouac, China's outsidero poets Han Shan (known as Cold Mountain) and his sidekick Shi Te, who lived in the Tang era (618 907), have long captured the imagination of poetry lovers and Zen aficionados. These legendary figures of Chinese literature and Zenuportrayed as the laughing, ragged pair who left their poetry on stones, trees, farmhouses, and the walls of the monasteries they visited and then disappeared into a cave foreveruexpressed in the simplest verse but in a completely new tone, the voice of ordinary people. In Cold Mountain Poems, the premier translator J. P. Seaton takes a fresh look at these captivating poets, along with Wang Fan-chih, another outsider poet who lived a couple centuries later and who captured the poverty and gritty day-to-day reality of the common people of his time. Cold Mountain Poems is a vibrant, wide-ranging collection that will immediately resonate for the contemporary reader. Seaton is a lively commentator and his comprehensive introduction and notes throughout give a fascinating context to this collection.
