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One Hundred Poems from the Chinese by Kenneth Rexroth
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a very nice collection, nicely translated and annotated. I enjoyed it a lot.

Tu Fu, with more than thirty poems in this collection, gets more coverage than any of the other poets, but with only two exceptions we get a good number of examples from every poet here. I like it that way, getting five or ten or more poems from the same poet. This gives the reader a chance to form an opinion of them, get a better idea of what they're like, and maybe follow up by finding collections devoted to each one. (That's what I intend to do, anyway.) Some collections like this have lots of poets with only one or two poems each, and I find that less interesting than the way it is here.

The topics and themes of the selections are pretty universal and generally comprehensible to someone not deeply familiar with culture-bound ideas. You don't need to know much about Chinese culture 1000 years ago to make sense of them or enjoy them. There are some helpful notes at the back (which I realized too late) but they aren't essential. I like it that way--just poetry up front, with background information at the back of the book. It's a nicer esthetic, IMO.

I liked the translations, and for probably half of them I liked the formatting as well. I had just an occasional "I wouldn't have done it that way" thought about how to arrange the lines on the page, but it wasn't enough to take me out of the poetry. In general, I found this a pleasure to read, and I think most readers will feel the same.

Recommended. I already hunted up the second volume, and I'm looking forward to it.

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