New Songs from a Jade Terrace

Rating:
Summary: My personal favorite
Review: Personally I prefer the Jade Terrace collection to even the Chinese poems of Li Po and Tu Fu. These poems are luminous and poignant, full of compressed emotion and beauty. Here are some examples in the poems included in this collection:

"Fan-piece, for her imperial lord" O fan of white silk, Clear as frost on the grass-blade, You also are laid aside.

"Poem" The rustling of the silk is discontinued, Dust drifts over the court-yard, There is no sound of foot-fall, and the leaves Scurry into heaps and lie still, And she the rejoicer of the heart is beneath them:

A wet leaf that clings to the threshold.

"Autumn Night" The autumn night draws on and still draws on

The night draws on and still the music does not cease

Dancing sleeves leap in the candles' flames

Song and sound go round on the Bridge of Phoenixes.

These poems are highly allusive, and can be hopelessly obscure if you don't understand the double meaning of some of the words, but hopefully the introduction of this edition explains the other meaning of, say, "jade terrace," "double-peaked lotus," and "fabulous pagoda." I can't explain them here without being explicit.