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M.F.K. Fisher: 
Poet of Page and Plate

 

Han-Shan

 

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Bicyclists Aaron and Laura Beese reminded us of another adventurer to the center of things who lived about 1400 years ago, Han-Shan, a Crazy Cloud (wandering) poet of the T’ang dynasty (627-650) AD.  Of Han Shan, the American poet, Gary Snyder wrote:  “Han-Shan, “Cold Mountain” takes his name from where he lived. He is a mountain madman in an old Chinese line of ragged hermits.  When he talks about Cold Mountain he means himself, his home, his state of mind.”

A contemporary, Lu Ch’iu-Yin, Governor of the T’ai Prefecture where Han Shan roamed wrote:  “He looked like a tramp.  His body and  face were old and beat.  Yet in every word he breathed was a meaning in line with the subtle principles of things, if only you thought of it deeply.” 

Take some Han-Shan with you the next time you go to hike Lower Howards Creek or the Gorge.  His poems will clear your head.  You can find Snyder’s complete translations of the poems in No Nature: New & Selected Poems, by Gary Snyder (Call # 811.54 Snyd) or in Mountain Home: The Wilderness Poetry of Ancirnt China, trans. David Hinton (Call # 895.1 Hint). 

 

The path to Han-shan’s place is laughable.
A path, but no sign of cart or horse.
Converging gorges—hard to trace their twists
Jumbled cliffs—unbelievably rugged.
A thousand grasses bend with dew,
A hill of pines hums in the wind.
And now I’ve lost the shortcut home,
Body asking shadow, how do you keep up?

 

Some critic tried to put me down—
“Your poems lack the Basic Truth of Tao”
And I recall the old-timers
Who were poor and didn’t care.
I have to laugh at him,
He misses the point entirely,
Men like that
Ought to stick to making money.

 

 

Here is a link to Gary Snyder’s entire translation of Han Shan’s Cold Mountain Poems.  Particularly good, this website also provides Snyder’s translation of the “Preface to the Poems of Han-shan, by Lu Ch'iu-yin, Governor of T'ai Prefecture.”  It is a wonderful description of this Crazy Cloud poet.

 http://www.hermetica.info/hanshan.htm