Category Archives: Literature

“The Mushroom is the Elf of Plants” (1350) by Emily Dickinson

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The Mushroom is the Elf of Plants --
   At Evening, it is not
 At Morning, in a Truffled Hut
   It stop opon a Spot

As if it tarried always
   And yet it's whole Career
 Is shorter than a Snake's Delay --
   And fleeter than a Tare --

'Tis Vegetation's Juggler --
   The Germ of Alibi --
 Doth like a Bubble antedate
   And like a Bubble, hie --

I feel as if the Grass was pleased
   To have it intermit --
 This surreptitious Scion 
   Of Summer's circumspect.

Had Nature any supple Face
   Or could she one contemn --
Had Nature an Apostate --
   That Mushroom -- it is Him!

“Untitled” [Pronunciation Poem] by Anonymous* [w/ Audio]

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I take it you already know
  Of tough and bough and cough and dough.
 Others may stumble, but not you,
  On hiccough, thorough, lough and through.
 Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,
  To learn of less familiar traps.

Beware of heard, a dreadful word
  That looks like beard and sounds like bird.
 And dead -- it's said like bed, not bead.
  For goodness sake, don't call it deed!
 Watch out for meat and great and threat.
  They rhyme with suite and straight and debt.

A moth is not a moth in mother,
  Nor both in bother, broth in brother,
 And here is not a match for there,
  Nor dear and fear for pear and bear.
 And then there's dose and rose and lose
  Just look them up -- and goose and choose.

And cork and work and card and ward.
  And font and front and word and sword.
 And do and go, then thwart and cart.
  Come, come I've hardly made a start.

A dreadful language? Man alive,
 I'd mastered it when I was five!

* This poem has come to be attributed to a T.S. Watt with a date of 1954. However, the broad divergence of titles and lack of other publication information suggest the alternate possibility that attribution was invented after the fact and has just been mindlessly copied across the internet. I don’t wish to cheat T.S. Watt, if he or she was an actual person who wrote this clever poem, but I also don’t wish to contribute to the spread of false information that happens regularly across the internet. Hence, this note.

“A Poison Tree” by William Blake [w/ Audio]

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I was angry with my friend;
  I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
 I was angry with my foe:
  I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I watered it in fears,
  Night & morning with my tears:
 And I sunned it with smiles,
  And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night.
  Till it bore an apple bright.
 And my foe beheld it shine,
  And he knew that it was mine.
 
And into my garden stole,
  When the night had veild the pole;
 In the morning glad I see;
  My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

“Swordsman” by Jia Dao [w/ Audio]

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Ten years honing this fine blade,
   And it has not drawn blood.
 Now, you'll see of what we're made:
   Who, wronged, is owed in blood?

The Original: 劍客: 十年磨一劍, 霜刃未曾試. 今日把示君, 誰有不平事.

“The Rainy Day” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow [w/ Audio]

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The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
 It rains, and the wind is never weary;
 The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
 But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
   And the day is dark and dreary.

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
 It rains, and the wind is never weary;
 My thoughts still cling to the mouldering past,
 But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
   And the days are dark and dreary.

Be still, sad heart, and cease repining;
 Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
 Thy fate is the common fate of all,
 Into each life some rain must fall,
   Some days must be dark and dreary.

“Slender” [Poetry Style #3] by Sikong Tu [w/ Audio]

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Picking, picking where water flows
 From a distant fountainhead.
 Moving up the narrow valley,
 One may see a stunning beaut.
Peachtrees laden with ripe fruit
 As breezes blow by the water
 And willows wind along the stream,
 While warblers consult with branch-mates.
The more one walks, the more Truth joins,
 And more Truth may reveal the Way.
  If this world is without end,
  The old must be made new again.

NOTE: The late Tang Dynasty poet, Sikong Tu (a.k.a. Ssŭ-k‘ung T‘u,) wrote an ars poetica entitled Twenty-Four Styles of Poetry. It presents twenty-four poems that are each in a different tone, reflecting varied concepts from Taoist philosophy and aesthetics. Above is a crude translation of the third of the twenty-four poems. This poem’s Chinese title is 纤秾. Giles translated the title as “Slim — Stout” and it’s also been translated as “Delicate – Rich.”

Tamed (Lyric Poem]

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Mural in Mtatsminda Park, Tbilisi
Ah, so nice to be Tamed --
   Never again the same.
   What style of Wild do you
   Think one could retain?

Being tamed would just be aces,
 If one could keep some Wild, in traces.

“Success is counted sweetest” (112) by Emily Dickinson [w/ Audio]

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Sucess is counted sweetest
   By those who ne'er succeed.
 To comprehend a nectar
   Requires sorest need.

Not one of all the purple Host
   Who took the Flag today
 Can tell the definition 
   So clear of victory

As he defeated -- dying --
    On whose forbidden ear
 The distant strains of triumph
    Burst agonized and clear!

BOOK: “Twenty-Nine Goodbyes” by Timothy Billings

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Twenty-Nine Goodbyes: An Introduction to Chinese PoetryTwenty-Nine Goodbyes: An Introduction to Chinese Poetry by Timothy Billings
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Publisher website

The premise of this book is simple, Billings presents twenty-nine different translations of a famous farewell poem by the Tang Dynasty poetic genius, Li Bai, and compares, contrasts, and critiques them in detail. The included translations weren’t all crafted in the English language, but English translations (of the translations) are presented as needed. There are translations from French, Spanish, Japanese, and even modern Mandarin Chinese — among others.

Despite how that may sound, it is a tremendously readable book. Billings writes with engaging prose, employs humor (especially when critiquing his own contribution in the final chapter,) and uses complicated jargon only when necessary and with comprehensible explanations.

Still, it does take a certain level of passion to read because one is repeatedly examining the same poem, and one has to have an interest in the minutiae of said poem and – more importantly — an interest in the broader lessons conveyed about translation. If whether a color is translated as green or blue (or what symbolic object tumbles on the ground, or what sound a horse makes) doesn’t seem change the emotional experience of the poem for you, then you’ll probably have a hard time getting into this book. That said, the ability to take a longitudinal view –seeing same points in a given poem through the lens of different poets and translators cross time and cultures, does offer insight that one would be unlikely to get from reading any of the twenty-nine translations in isolation as part of a single translator’s collection of translations.

The most useful thing the book did for me was to increase my understanding of the nature of translation and its tradeoffs, as well as to elucidate how easy it is to miss the mark when one is translating from a perspective so different in time and worldview.

I’d highly recommend this book for anyone interested in Tang Dynasty poetry, translation, and the interface of culture and language.

View all my reviews

“If thou must love me” [Sonnet 14] by Elizabet Barrett Browning [w/ Audio]

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If thou must love me, let it be for nought 
  Except for love's sake only. Do not say,
  "I love her for her smile -- her look -- her way
  Of speaking gently, -- for a trick of thought  
  That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
  A sense of pleasant ease on such a day" --
 For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
  Be changed, or change for thee -- and love, so wrought,
  May be unwrought so. Neither love me for 
  Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry:
  A creature might forget to weep, who bore
  Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
 But love me for love's sake, that evermore
 Thou mayst love on, through love's eternity.