tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-786207835641480928.post5148873043118165524..comments2024-03-28T12:59:41.910-04:00Comments on NeverEnding Story: One Man's Maple Moon: A Tanka about Li Po by Larry KimmelChen-ou Liu, 劉鎮歐http://www.blogger.com/profile/06235248170011255532noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-786207835641480928.post-57622088686774908282013-11-08T08:21:18.969-05:002013-11-08T08:21:18.969-05:00Below is a relevant excerpt from Robert D. Wilson&...Below is a relevant excerpt from Robert D. Wilson's essay, titled"An Evaluation and Introspective Look at the Haiku of Chen-ou Liu," which was first published Simply Haiku, 8:2, Autumn 2010<br /><br /><br />moonlight<br />no wine, reading<br />Li Po<br /><br />...<br /><br />Says Chen-ou:<br /><br />As an individual, Li Po was free-spirited. He took an unusual path in life and career. Well-traveled at a young age, he didn’t bother to take the Chinese civil service examination which was viewed as the only way to elevate one’s social status and guarantee their prosperity. He dared to challenge authority, and loved a good bottle of wine and making friends. His nonconformist personality characteristics continue to stand as a model for me to emulate.<br /><br />As a poet, Li Po is one of the most loved Chinese poets and his poems are widely taught in schools, memorized by children, and constantly recited on all sorts of occasions. The first poem I ever memorized was his “Thoughts in Night Quiet,” the best known of all Chinese poems, especially among Chinese living overseas:<br /><br />Seeing moonlight here at my bed,<br />and thinking it's frost on the ground,<br /><br />I look up, gaze at the mountain moon,<br />then back, dreaming of my old home.<br /><br />-- translated by David Hinton<br /><br />When I was six, my father recited this poem to me with watery eyes. At that time, he hadn’t seen his family for two decades since he came to Taiwan in 1949, with the defeated Chinese Nationalist Army. I memorized the poem and didn’t fully reflect upon its meaning in my heart and mind. Little was understood about the suffering endured by my father and his generation due to the Chinese Civil War. It was not until the seventh year since I emigrated to Canada that I’d experienced this pang of nostalgic longing explored in Li’s poem through the moon imagery – a symbol of distance and family reunion – portrayed in simple and evocative language. Since then, every time when I thought of my parents, my family, and my hometown, I recited “Thoughts in Night Quiet,” which is not only Li’s poem but also mine.<br /><br />More importantly, some of the recurring themes in Li’s poems appeal greatly to me, such as dreams, solitude/loneliness, and the passage of time, and they become the key motifs of my work. His skillful use of language, his great sensibility toward imagery, and his deep insights into the human condition through a Taoist lens capture nuanced human experience, which is the main goal I want to achieve in my writing.<br />Chen-ou Liu, 劉鎮歐https://www.blogger.com/profile/06235248170011255532noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-786207835641480928.post-7650777879822511802013-11-08T07:54:38.369-05:002013-11-08T07:54:38.369-05:00Marion:
Yes, there is a shift in tone through Lar...Marion:<br /><br />Yes, there is a shift in tone through Larry's effective collocation of '...?' and 'sure.'<br /><br />I enjoy reading your thoughtful comment. Thanks for sharing.<br /><br />Chen-ouChen-ou Liu, 劉鎮歐https://www.blogger.com/profile/06235248170011255532noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-786207835641480928.post-53336603396344624782013-11-08T04:30:19.415-05:002013-11-08T04:30:19.415-05:00For me, this tanka cries out to be read aloud beca...For me, this tanka cries out to be read aloud because of the author's voice in the last line, it's a very tongue-in-cheek statement and you can imagine him sitting on a porch in the moonlight exchanging tales with an old pal. <br /><br />The scene portrayed of the drunken Li Po leaning from the boat to hug the moon and falling into the water is very visual - like slapstick comedy - and even though he is supposed to have drowned, it is very humorous. <br /><br />marion Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-786207835641480928.post-27531779049272668742013-11-07T18:07:10.414-05:002013-11-07T18:07:10.414-05:00I'm impressed by Larry's thematically-focu...I'm impressed by Larry's thematically-focused account of the fanciful tradition regarding Li Po's death and by his strategically/rhetorically effective use of punctuation marks to form a thematically dialectical relationship between the two parts of the poem.Chen-ou Liu, 劉鎮歐https://www.blogger.com/profile/06235248170011255532noreply@blogger.com