Where We Meet Another Famous Tang Poet

Poems by Wang Wei
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Wang Wei was another of the Tang dynasty's beloved poets, along with Li Bai and Du Fu. Like other poets, he became a court official, holding a number of posts throughout the country, though it is his country retreat that he most loved. His poetry is filled with nature imagery and bits of personal information--including friends and postings, mostly, with little mention of family other than his brother--but it all feels personal, in a way. Like so many poets of the time, he typically wrote in his own voice; the thoughts are his real thoughts and the feelings presented are his feelings. (Mostly.) There is a small mention (in this volume, at least) of the tragedy of his wife's death when he was only 30, though it is only in the notes that this is made explicit, and it seems odd to me, a modern reader from the US, thousands of miles away and 1200 years later, that he might so directly express sadness at being parted from a friend but suppress and barely mention any feelings he had about a more personal grief. It feels backwards to me. But I suspect that says more about culture and norms, about which topics are deemed appropriate for literature and which aren't, than it says about personality and his true feelings.

This volume is small but contains a good chunk of his known poetry. The foreword and notes are useful, clarifying a lot of the opaque references, and the translation is very readable. As far as the poetry itself, I found I liked most of it but felt drawn to and connected to just a little. My reactions were more like, "Nice, interesting, well done," and only sometimes like, "Oh, right, I get that!" But maybe I'll try a bit in another anthology to see if I can't run onto more of the second type.

Anyway, a nice collection. A lot of readers of poetry might enjoy this.

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