1. Rexroth’s Du Fu Complex
Kenneth. Kenneth Rexroth (1905-1982) was not a pivotal figure in the American literary world. This was mainly because he did not join any poetry school. He worked alone and was independent of the mainstream American poetry tradition. outside. However, Rexroth was the first important poet in the United States after World War II. He especially made outstanding contributions in spreading Chinese culture.
(1) Beat elements before the emergence of the Beats
Rex Roth was born in Indiana and later lived in San Francisco for a long time. He spent his teenage years in the American Midwest and was orphaned at the age of 13. The school education he received was very unsystematic. He studied painting in Chicago and New York and worked as a painter, worker, columnist, reporter and university teacher.
Rex Roth has unique insights into poetry creation. He believes that American literature should not trace its roots from Europe, but should draw strength from local Indian culture. He emphasized expressing personal life experience in his poetic works, praising nature and new things, and attacking decadent traditions and social evils. He sympathizes with the working people, has a strong sense of justice, extremely hates all kinds of man-made disasters, and hates war even more. He once claimed that one of the purposes of writing poetry was "to expose all evil."
In terms of creative techniques, Rex Roth has made many attempts. "He wrote Imagist poetry, Cubist poetry, Impressionist poetry imitating Mallarmé, Symbolist poetry imitating Apollinaire, Surrealist structure poetry, imitating Chinese or Japanese style poetry, poetry with jazz band accompaniment , ballad-style poems, antique landscape poems, etc. "He paid great attention to drawing nourishment from literature from all over the world, and has translated and published many poems from China, Japan, Greece, Latin, Spain and France. He believed that poetry was both a structure and a form of communication. The poems he created are close to colloquialism, fresh and clear, friendly and natural, and have the tranquility and depth of Chinese landscape paintings.
(2) "One Hundred Chinese Poems" by Rex Roth
While studying foreign cultures, Rex Roth developed a strong interest in Chinese classical poetry. interest. Rexroth translated as many as four or five collections of Chinese poetry. He himself once claimed that he had been addicted to Du Fu's poems for 30 years and benefited greatly. He believes that Du Fu is "the greatest non-epic non-dramatic poet in the world. In some respects, he is better than Shakespeare or Homer. At least he is more natural and more approachable." He clearly sees that the culture that raised Du Fu is human The most outstanding culture in history, an excellent poet like Du Fu focuses on "people's faith, love, generosity, calmness and sympathy", and only these qualities can save the entire world. Although Du Fu did not have any religious beliefs, he was concerned about the fate and situation of ordinary people, and this was "the only possible lasting religion." Rexroth's admiration for Du Fu led him to finally say this: "I have been immersed in his poetry for 30 years. I am convinced that he has made me a nobler person and an ethical agent. An insightful organism. "
Rexroth first came into contact with Chinese culture through the sinologist Witter Bynner, who introduced him to the names and works of some sinologists. , and introduced a Chinese student studying at the University of Chicago to help Rex Roth learn Chinese. Prior to this, Western scholars had always praised Li Bai's poems and considered Li Bai the greatest poet in Chinese history. Rexroth, who began to study Chinese poetry under the influence of Binner, discovered the charm of Du Fu and reversed the Western revolution. Prejudices long held by academics. In Rexroth's first collection of translated poems, Du Fu's poems accounted for a large proportion, which shows his preference for Du Fu's poems.
Rex Roth translated 36 of Du Fu's poems in one ***, 35 of which were included in the book "One Hundred Chinese Poems" published in 1956, and 1 was included in In "Love and the Turning Years of History: One Hundred Chinese Poems" published in 1970. Rexroth mainly relied on the following versions when translating Du Fu's poems:
1. "Jiu Jia Ji An Zhu Du Shi" edited by Guo Zhida, which is the original Chinese text of Du Fu's poems;
2. English translation of Du Fu's poems by William Hung;
3. English translation of Du Fu's poems in "Fir-Flower Tablets" co-translated by Aisku and Lowell ;
4. Owen. Feng. The German translation of Du Fu's poems translated by Erwin von Zach;
5. The grammatical translation of Du Fu's poems translated by Hervey St. Denys;
6. Translated by Luo Dagang The French translation of Du Fu's poems;
7. The French translation of Du Fu's poems, translated by George Margouliers;
8. The English translation of Du Fu's poems, translated by Robert Payne translation.
Among so many reference books, Rexroth used the first three most, namely: the original Chinese text of Du Fu's poems, Hong Ye's English translation of Du Fu's poems, and Aisku and Lowell. Co-translated English translation of Du Fu's poems.
Among the many poems written by Du Fu, Rexroth only translated 36 poems. Did he make any choices when translating Du Fu's poems? The answer is yes. Rexroth said in the annotation of "One Hundred Chinese Poems": "I only choose those poems that are relatively simple and direct, and those with the fewest literary allusions and political allegories." In fact, the content of Du Fu's poems is always Connected with social life, Du Fu's poems reflect the poet's sympathy and friendship for ordinary working people, as well as his resentment and hatred for the ruling class. Without the political background, Du Fu's poetry would lose its social significance. Therefore, although Rexroth tried his best to choose poems with few allusions and political background when translating Du Fu's poems, anyone can imagine that it is impossible for a Du Fu poem to be free from these factors. Rexroth obviously also understood this feature of Du Fu's poetry, so when he translated Du Fu's poems, he did not hesitate to drastically delete the original text, "replacing literary allusions, political allegories, or ancient references with expressions that readers can understand." cultural relics, etc."
Rexroth believes that there should be a certain degree of freedom in translating poetry and that one should not be rigidly bound to the original text, because the translator is translating for a specific reader in a specific era and must take the reader's acceptance into consideration. degree. Rexroth once said: "The reason why a great translation work can be passed down to this day is because it completely belongs to its own era." Based on this principle, Rexroth translated Du Fu's poems. At that time, many of my own creations were added. Such creation has won praise from many poets and critics.
Poet William. Carlos. William Carlos Williams once praised Rexroth's collection of translated poems and said: "Among the collections of poems written in modern American languages ??that I have had the pleasure of reading, this book ranks among the most emotional." He also said: "The Du Fu poems translated by Wang Honggong (Rex Roth) are so detailed that no other translator can match them." Sinologist Binner also said: "These translated poems make people feel our The soul is resurrected in the ancient landscape. We are emotionally integrated with the ancients and become one. I am this ancient person, where will I go? This ancient person is me, where will I go? "The poet W.S. Merwin wrote to a friend in 1979. In a letter, he also talked in detail about his feelings about Rexroth's collection of translated poems: "One night, I picked up his "One Hundred Chinese Poems" again. It had been several years since I had read it. I sat down and read it from beginning to end in one breath. I was filled with gratitude and felt the vitality of this book. I have been reading this book for many years. "Another." The poet John Haines once frankly declared that the style of his own poetry tends to be simple, concise, and clear, and was influenced by Du Fu's poems translated by Rexroth.
History has proven that Rexroth’s collection of translated poems is another widely influential English translation of Chinese poetry after Pound’s Cathay. Whether in terms of translation skills or the impact of the translated poetry collection on future generations, Rexroth's Chinese poetry translations are comparable to Pound's "Chinese Poetry Collection".
(3) Chinese poetic "Red Maple Leaf"
Rex Roth traveled throughout the Midwestern region of the United States when he was young, so his poems also revealed that The aura of the mountains. Reading his poems, we seem to have a sense of déjà vu, because his poems are similar to Chinese landscape poetry. From his poems, we can see the tranquility, profoundness, elegance and elegance unique to Chinese landscape poetry.
The wild geese fly from north to south
You are far away in the east.
The west wind will carry the message eastward
but
in this far west
the east wind will never blow.
This poem is titled "Lost Love" and is included in his "New Poems". The poet uses the natural scene of geese flying from north to south and the characteristics of east wind and west wind to hint to readers the impossibility of information exchange, so the lost love can no longer be regained.
A moonless night.
In the dark sky
The eyes can see through tens of thousands of miles.
Melancholy fills the heart.
This poem is titled "Moonless Night", and the artistic conception expressed in the poem is typical Chinese. At night, there is no moon, it is pitch black, and people's mood is as gloomy as this dark night. This creative method of using considerable natural phenomena to imply people's subjective emotions is commonly used in ancient Chinese poetry, so this poem is very in line with the aesthetic taste of the Chinese people.
The cold before dawn
The cold before dawn
Scattered in the vast night,
Under the convex moon,
p>
The peacocks cried to each other
as if they were in great pain.
This poem titled "The Cold Before Dawn" is also included in Rex Roth's "New Poems". The artistic conception expressed in this poem is similar to that of the previous poem.
The difference is that there is no moon in the previous poem, and the gloomy night sky reflects the melancholy mood of the protagonist. But in this poem, the moon appears, but the moon's appearance does not add any bright tone to the entire picture. The moment before dawn is the coldest moment of the day. The moon at this time not only has no pleasing effect, but also enhances the desolate and cold atmosphere of the picture. On such a quiet, cold night, the call of the peacock is even more prominent. Their cries are even more sad, melancholy, sad and painful in the silent night. The poet expresses subjective emotions well with the help of these natural scenes.
In a poem titled "Red Maple Leaf," Rex Roth recounts driving through a small town where the sweetheart of his youth once lived. At the end of this poem, the poet wrote:
I drove down the river,
saw a boy fishing on the bridge
Clear water
p>
The fallen leaves were floating
Then I headed west,
driving into the vast sunset.
Poems with a touch of sadness can be found everywhere in ancient Chinese poetry. Poets express subjective emotions with the help of natural scenes, allowing readers to communicate and contact directly with nature, without directly venting subjective feelings in poetic works. This is the creative method of finding "observable counterparts" advocated by Eliot. And we know that this method first originated from Chinese classical poetry. It is one of the traditions that American poets creatively inherited from Chinese classical poetry during the American New Poetry Movement.
We can clearly see from the four poems above that the artistic conception created by Rex Roth in his poems is similar to that of classical Chinese poetry. In 1970, Rex Roth said in an interview with Chinese-American Ms. Zhong Ling in California, USA: "I think Chinese poetry has a far greater influence on me than other poetry. When I write poetry myself, I mostly follow a certain style. "A kind of Chinese rule" He further explained that this kind of Chinese rule is to express specific pictures and actions and appeal to the images of the five senses in poetry, and to create a "poetic state." "("a poetic situation"). The so-called "poetry" "must have a specific place and a specific time. ... If you describe a distant bell ringing in the pine forest, it must be a temple in the mountains. In this way, readers can Being in a "poetry" puts him in a place, just like being on the stage and becoming one of the actors... This is a basic technique of Chinese poetry." We seem to be able to say that no American poet has a more thorough understanding of the artistic conception of Chinese poetry than Rex Roth. The imagery used by Rexroth in the poem quoted above is also Chinese. We know that wild geese are an image often used by Chinese poets to express their feelings of parting and longing, while Western poets do not use wild geese as the main image in their poems. Although the moon also appears in the works of Western poets, its meaning is different. Small bridges, flowing water, and fallen leaves are also typical Chinese images. The images used by Rexroth in his poems
remind us of the meanings used by Chinese poets when they use these images. There is no doubt that this fully shows that Rexroth accepts the influence of Chinese culture.
Rex Roth likes to incorporate translated Chinese poems into his own creations. Please read this poem:
Wild flowers and wild grasses
grow on the stone steps of ancient temples
. The sun sets
among the green mountains. Swallows
In the past they built their nests under the palace walls
Under the painted buildings
Tonight they flew to the homes of lumberjacks and masons
>
Much older than the stone steps
This is the stone wall
The flat boulders
covered with moss and ferns. If you
sneak up and imitate the calls of the
tree frogs that live here, you can
talk to them all day long.
This little poem titled "Mountain Village" is composed of two stanzas. The first stanza is obviously a poem from Liu Yuxi's "Wo Yi Xiang" translated by Rex Roth. The original text is this:
Wild grass and flowers beside Zhuque Bridge,
The setting sun is setting at the entrance of Wuyi Lane.
In the old days, the king Xietang Qianyan,
flyed into the homes of ordinary people.
It can be seen that there is still a discrepancy between Rexroth's translation and the original meaning. Strictly speaking, his translation contains several mistranslations and mistranslations. But we should also admit that the basic artistic conception of the original poem has been translated. The second stanza of Rexroth's poem is entirely his own creation. It can be said that it is an association triggered by the artistic conception of the first stanza. There are many poems like this that are half translation and half creation in Rexroth's collection of poems. In doing so, he also imitated Pound. Pound's "Liu Che" is also an adaptation of an ancient Chinese poem. The original text is "The Cicada Song of Fallen Leaves" written by Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty when he missed Mrs. Li:
The robe is silent,
The jade skirt is dusty.
The empty room is cold and lonely,
The fallen leaves cling to the heavy tree
I hope that the beautiful girl will be safe and sound,
I feel so much My heart is not at peace!
(4) An American poet named "Wang Honggong"
Rex Roth likes to regard the original materials he refers to as materials and as materials in his works. A starting point for his imagination to soar. Therefore, when we appreciate Rexroth's poems, "we should not explore them word for word and stick to the original text", but should regard his poems as other creations after his experience of Chinese poetry, "with a sense of harmony", so that we can truly Appreciate the merit and charm of his poetry.
Rex Roth obviously has a very good understanding of the characteristics of Chinese poetry. In the process of translating poetry, he highlighted these characteristics intentionally or unintentionally, which made his translation more "Chinese". . Du Fu has a poem called "Ge Night", and the four lines in it are like this: "At the end of the year, the yin and yang rush to shorten the scene, and the frost and snow in the horizon are cold. The drums and horns sound solemn and solemn at the fifth watch, and the shadows of the mountains and rivers in the Three Gorges are shaken." Rex Roth put it The first three lines of the poem are translated as——
It is late in the year,
Yin and Yang struggle
In the brief sunlight.
< p>On the desert mountains.Frost and snow
Gleam in the freezing night.
Past midnight,
Drums and bugles ring out,
Violent, cutting the heart.
He translated each line in the original poem into three shorter lines, making each line in the original poem The one image in the line became three images, so the images in the translated poem became more vivid and prominent.
Critic John. After reading "One Hundred Chinese Poems" translated by Rex Roth, John Bishop said: "These English translations generally have a clear and concise effect. ... However, anyone who has made some effort to study Chinese poetry, Because of this clarity, you will feel something is wrong in your heart. If a poem seems to be understood at a glance, it is inevitable to wonder whether there are many layers of attached and well-founded meanings. "In fact, Chinese poetry. It is clear on the surface, but it has profound connotation and artistic conception. Chinese poets often do not express their feelings directly, but use natural landscapes to hint at their subjective emotions. Therefore, although ancient Chinese poetry may seem simple on the surface, it is also very implicit and has profound meaning. Rexroth's translated poems perfectly reflect the characteristics of Chinese poetry. We can even say that his translation itself is "first-class English poetry creation."
Rexroth met Binner when he was 19 years old and began to become interested in Du Fu. From then on, his passion for Du Fu and Chinese poetry grew. Rexroth was an anarchist. He believed that the Confucianism expressed in Du Fu's poems was "too pedantic", but he recognized the sadness and sentimentality expressed in Du Fu's poems. He believed that Du Fu's poems solved the major problem of "how people deal with themselves when they are lonely". Because Rexroth had a strong identification with Du Fu's poems, when he translated Du Fu's poems, he consciously or unconsciously added "too much of his own experience and mood", and sometimes even used Du Fu's poems as material and the basis to express your feelings. When we read Rexroth's translated poems, it is difficult to distinguish which are Du Fu's poems he translated and which were his own creations. He and Du Fu have merged into an organic whole.
When Rexroth published his first collection of translated Chinese poems, he gave himself a Chinese name: Wang Honggong, and printed these three words on the cover of the collection of translated poems. . Since then, these three words have forever linked the American poet Rex Roth and the Chinese poet Du Fu.
2. The imagery poetry of Bly, Wright and Bai Juyi
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, deep imagery poetry with surrealist characteristics appeared in the United States, which mainly The representative figure is Robert. Robert Bly (1926-) and James. Wright (James Wright, 1927-1980). The two friends not only hold similar aesthetic views, but also have a persistent pursuit and love for Chinese classical poetry. They both imitate the artistic conception of Chinese classical poetry in one way or another in their poetry creations. They are American Two contemporary writers deeply influenced by Chinese culture.
(1) Intuitive feelings based on rationalism
New Surrealism is a modern poetry movement that emerged in the United States. Some people may regard it as Classified as postmodernism.
Its historical origins can be traced back to the French writers Breton (Andre Breton, 1896-1966), Paul Eluard (1895-1952), and Louis Aragon (1897-1982) who emerged in the 1920s. French Surrealism represented by Philippe Soupault (1897-1991) and others. The New Surrealists themselves did not like this name. They preferred to say that what they created was "deep image poetry". This school of poets abandoned the conscious "self" and the existence of society, trying to hide in "unconscious, solipsistic religious emotions", believing that only the subconscious mind can know the truth. They use deep imagery, "language of thought" and "grammar of dreams" to criticize and satirize society from a surreal and irrational perspective. The emergence of New Surrealism is closely related to the Dadaism and Surrealism exhibition held in New York, USA in 1968. Although New Surrealism is a very loose literary genre, it has a very wide influence. Many contemporary poets, especially young poets around the age of 30, are keen on Surrealist style poems. Among them, Bly and Wright are representatives of New Surrealism.
Robert. Bly was an editor at the magazine "The Fifties" (later renamed "The Sixties" and "The Seventies"). He is the author of "Quiet Fields" (1962), "The Light Around the Body" (1968) , which won the National Book Award in 1968 and other poetry collections;
James. Wright, author of Shall We Meet at the River? "(1968), "Collected Poems" (1971, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1972), "Two Citizens" (1973), "Italian Summer" (1976) and other poetry collections;
Bly was born in Minnesota, attended St. Olaf College and Harvard University, and studied in Norway on a Fulbright scholarship. He has always been politically radical and has always been critical of issues such as the Vietnam War and environmental pollution. He once put forward the theory of "jump poetry", which required exploring the source of poetry creation in people's unconsciousness. Wright was born on a small farm in Ohio and attended Kenyon College and the University of Washington. After receiving his PhD, he studied for a year at the University of Vienna with a Fulbright grant. Later, he devoted himself to translating the works of foreign poets, and he also translated some foreign poems with Bly. Wright is also a poet with a strong social responsibility. He said: "...I want to describe the beauty of nature. I love nature very much, but this pursuit is always influenced by my responsibility as a person. A person's life is more important than The blooming of a pear tree is much more complicated, it is full of pain. "
Let us first read two deep-image poems to experience the poet's unique feelings about the real world.
Promise
You will never be alone, you hear
such a deep voice when autumn comes. Yellow
The air flow over the mountains, over the gentle sound of the piano
Over the silence after the lightning,
When the lightning has time to speak
Before the name - then,
It was Nonyun who opened his mouth to apologize
. It was destined when you were born:
You will never be alone. The rain will come
The ditches will overflow, an Amazon river,
The promenade - you have never heard
Such a deep sound,
Moss on the ledge, and time. You turn your ears and listen
Silence means: you are not alone.
The whole world is pouring down.
In this poem, the thick clouds opening their mouths and the vast world pouring down are the poet's unique feelings about the real world. This kind of exaggeration and deformation can be said to be a tradition inherited by poets from the Imagist poets at the beginning of this century. Autumn comes with sounds, the air with colors, and the rain that fills the ditches. The dislocation and blending of these sounds, colors, and shapes are also the poet's unique experience. From mountains to rivers, from lightning to the sound of the piano, these jumps may seem unrelated on the surface, but they are deeply connected.
Start
The moon threw one or two feathers into the field.
The dark wheat seedlings listened suspiciously.
At this time
It was silent.
There, Yue'er's chicks are trying out
their wings.
In the forest, a slender woman
raised her lovely face,
she stepped lightly into the air,
Rising slowly.
I stood alone next to an old tree, not daring to breathe
nor move.
I listened with bated breath.
The wheat seedling leans into its own darkness,
And I lean into my darkness.
In this poem, the poet imagines the moon as a bird with feathers, which scatters its feathers on the field, and there are a group of young chicks stroking their wings around. What a picture it is. A sight to behold! In this silent night, a graceful woman rose into the air with light steps. Is it reality? Or a dream? "I" hid beside an old tree and listened to all this quietly, for fear of destroying this beautiful scenery. From a rational point of view, the scene described by the poet in the poem is impossible in reality, but readers seem to be willing to be moved by the scene depicted in the poem. Dreams and reality are intertwined to form a surreal picture.
Deep image poetry is developed on the basis of image poetry. It has similarities with iconographic poetry. They both emphasize the juxtaposition and arrangement of images, advocate giving full play to the poet's subjective initiative, and require the poet to express unique feelings in his poems. But deep image poetry pays more attention to people's subconscious and unconsciousness, so the feelings it describes are often absurd on the surface. Blyzen said, "Deep image poetry makes the leap of imagination and the transformation of metaphor possible through the excavation of the unconscious, making the image leap from the depths of the soul." Perhaps we can say that deep image poets have formed a deep understanding of objective things. It is a work that is based on the intuitive feeling and subjective and rational processing of this feeling.
(2) Reference to Chinese Poetry
When Bly participated in the "Writers' Week" event at the Adelaide Arts Festival in Australia, he recited his poem to a delegation of Chinese writers. A poem titled "Thinking of
Bly once said: "I think the way out for American poetry lies in learning from Latin American poetry and at the same time learning from Chinese classical poetry." In a conversation with scholar Mr. Wang Zuoliang, Bly He is not very satisfied with the situation of the American poetry scene, but he also said that there are still some good poets in the United States. Among the "good poets" he lists, we find James. Wright, Gary. Gary Snyder, William. Stafford, Kenneth Rexroth and others. These people either hold similar views to Bly, or are simply admirers of Chinese poetry. In Bly's view, American poetry should continue to break away from the shackles of British tradition. American poets should root their creations in the soil of their own nation and create something "vivid, colorful, and alive." Bly himself has also translated some classical Chinese poetry. He also likes Li He very much and thinks that Li He's poems contain truly outstanding images, which are "almost too crazy to even cover up." After carefully studying classical Chinese poetry, Bly concluded: "In ancient China, various levels of perception could mix quietly. They were not divided into layers like lake water in winter, but were somehow all mixed together." flow together. I think ancient Chinese poetry is still the greatest poetry ever written by mankind."
Bly seemed to prefer Tao Yuanming's work, which he selected for his 1980 edition. In a selected poem titled "News from the Universe, Poems of Double Consciousness", I wrote the following words on the book presented to Mr. Wang Zuoliang: "This selected poem represents the result of my many years of thinking. . It begins with Tao Yuanming, the grandfather of this poem: Picking Chrysanthemums Under the Eastern Fence..." He believes that Tao Yuanming is the spiritual ancestor of the 19th-century British poet William Wordsworth. A poem by Bly entitled "Chrysanthemum" is "composed for Tao Yuanming of Chrysanthemum":
1
Tonight I am running under the moonlight!
I don’t get on the saddle until late at night.
The horse found its way through the barren farmland
The dark shadow guided it.
2
The horse stood upright a mile away from the yard,
It was so happy. Aimless
Walking through the fields with nothing to do is so refreshing,
The body is alive, just like a flower.
3
Returning from the light-colored road,
How quiet the clothes are hanging out!
When I walked into the study, there were white chrysanthemums in the moonlight beside the door!
However, we can still see that due to the different aesthetic tastes between East and West, Bly's poem is far from reaching the artistic conception of Tao Yuanming's poem. Although at the end of the poem, we read images such as "pale road" and "white chrysanthemum", the whole poem still lacks the tranquility and tranquility of Chinese classical poetry.
Bly deliberately pursued the structure of Chinese poetry in the form of poetry creation. He once created such a poem:
After a long period of busyness
A few days ago After sitting at my desk for a long time, I was finally able to go out for a walk.
The moon has set, and I am walking without stars.
There is not a trace of light!
What if a fierce horse gallops towards me in this wilderness?
The days I did not spend in solitude
were all in vain.
The first two lines of this poem describe the scenery and environment, the third line is the reverie of the world, and the fourth line is the discussion of the world. This structure is very similar to the structure of ancient Chinese poetry. Thinking of Bly's leisurely state of mind and demeanor when he recited Li Bai's poem to a delegation of Chinese writers, "Ask me what I want to do, I live on a green mountain, I laugh but don't answer and my heart is at ease." We can't help but admire Bly's profound understanding of Chinese poetry. , one cannot help but lament the charm of Chinese poetry that transcends national boundaries. Wright was a good friend of Bly and also liked Bai Juyi's poems. He once added this title to one of his poems: "After reading a volume of bad poetry, I felt depressed, so I walked to an idle pasture and begged insects for company." This method of naming poems is quite similar. Inscriptions in Chinese classical poetry. Wright also wrote another poem with a long title:
On Pine Island, Minnesota, William. Lying in a hammock at Duffy's Farm
Overhead, I saw bronze butterflies
Sleeping on the black branches,
In the green The shadow is blown by the wind like a leaf.
Down in the valley, behind the empty house,
The cowbells rang one after another
Into the depths of noon.
To my right
Under two pine trees, in the field covered with sunshine,
The dung pile left by last year’s horses
issued The fire light turns into golden stone.
I leaned back, and when dusk fell,
A young eagle slid past, looking for his home.
I have wasted my life.
Whether it is the choice of the title or the artistic conception of the entire poem, this poem reminds us of Chinese classical poetry and Chinese landscape paintings.
One of Wright's poems is about Bai Juyi:
At the end of winter, crossing the quagmire, I thought of a local official in ancient China
Bai Juyi lost his hair one after another
Why work in vain?
I think of you
Entering the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River anxiously.
The trackers will pull your boat upstream,
send you to Chungju City,
become an official official.
I guess it will be dark when you arrive.
But it is 1960, and spring is approaching.
The big rocks in Minneapolis
create my unique twilight,
there are also ropes and rapids.
Where is Yuan Zhen? Where are your friends?
Where is the sea?
The boundless lonely sea that once melted the entire Midwest?
Where is Minneapolis?
I could see nothing,
except the terrible
great oak tree, darkened by winter.
Have you found a lonely city on the other side of the mountain?
Still holding on to the frayed
end of the rope,
not letting go for a thousand years?