[New-Poetry] Bai Juyi

[Sigauke, Emmanuel]

View the evolving Munyori Poetry Journal at www.munyori.com
 

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From: new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu
[mailto:new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu] On Behalf Of Jim Gourley
Sent: Thursday, November 15, 2007 1:46 PM
To: 'NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views'
Subject: [New-Poetry] Bai Juyi



Indeed, David, it's Bai Juyi in pinyin, the Romanized system that was
introduced a half-century ago. The earlier Romanized system was the
Wade-Giles which would have represented Bai Juyi as Pai Chui (umlaut
over the 'u'). For those interested in having a look at some interesting
sites that have rollover definitions of individual characters, which are
helpful in seeing how truly awful some of the available translations
are, have a look at http://www.afpc.asso.fr/wengu/ a wonderful French
site with the Chinese Classics written in traditional characters with
the rollover defs in Enlgish. The translations are in both French and
English. The translations of the classic 300 Tang Poems in which the Bai
Juyi appears are by Witter Bynner. I am not a fan. 

 

Another site is http://www.chinese-poems.com/. The format is different.
Each poem is presented in quarters, upper left, the characters; upper
right, pinyin with tonal markings; the bottom left, the
word-for-character translation; and the lower right, the translations,
which, for the most part, are 'not good'.

 

Of the two, the French site is by far the most informative. And fun.

 

--Jim Gourley, a lurker

 

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http://www.rudenoon.com <http://www.rudenoon.com/> 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rudenoon

 

 

 

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From: new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu
[mailto:new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu] On Behalf Of David Graham
Sent: Friday, November 16, 2007 1:21 AM
To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp;Views
Subject: [New-Poetry] >From the Other World: Poems in Memory of James
Wright

 

You may well be right about Wright reading Pound's *Cathay*--I think he
read about everything, and had most of it memorized.  But the poem below
quotes the Arthur Waley translation of Po Chu-I (aka Bai Ju-Yi, I
believe).

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