This is not a translation, but rather a version, my “take” on a famous Tu Fu poem. I claim no abilities in translation, neither speak nor read Chinese, and instead depend upon the skills of those who have ventured into these difficult reaches. This is where the poem carries me, a middle-aged Texas hill county dweller, in the Year of the Horse, 2014.
Night Journey (after Tu Fu)
Wind bends the grass along the road.
A lonely truck passes by.
Stars reach down to touch these hills
and the moon drifts behind.
No one will ever know my poems.
I am too old and ill to work.
Circling, floating, who am I
but a vulture looking down.
Here’s a literal translation of the piece (or so I believe), found on chinese-poems.com:
Nocturnal Reflections While Traveling
Gently grass soft wind shore
Tall mast alone night boat
Stars fall flat fields broad
Moon rises great river flows
Name not literary works mark
Official should old sick stop
Flutter flutter what place seem
Heaven earth one sand gull
My goal was to retain the mood, as I understand it, of the original, and to place it into my personal context. An interesting exercise.
O at the Edges 
Great poem. And really great how you used the original TuFu piece as the template but localize the elements while keeping the new version orbiting around what is the feeling at the poem’s center. Very cool.
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Thanks, Jeff. I’ve tried a number of these, with mixed results. The unsuccessful seem forced, too much. But producing the occasional one that works makes it all worthwhile.
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agreed. very cool indeed!
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Texas Hill Country is beautiful.
I was struck by the second stanza. I just finished a second draft of a new short story that starts with a vulture circling over the desert.
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I’m familiar with Tu Fu’s poem. I really like how you’ve captured the mood of it with your own original work.
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This poetry really touched me. Thank you. Love, Amy
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Then my day is complete.
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… smile …
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I don’t know Tu Fu. I enjoyed your interpretation of the mood. SD
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Fine, very fine. Keep drinking the water down there 🙂
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Both of ’em work for me.
🙂
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Spirit is everything. I do speak and read Chinese and occasionally experiment with writing English poems that capture the cadence of Chinese poems, but ultimately it’s the *feeling* the great Chinese poets created — their ability to bring the reader/listener into the unique space they’ve created, a product of time, nature, and experience — that inspires me. You did a wonderful job capturing that!
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Thank you. I’m so pleased that one who speaks and reads the language approves of my version!
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wonderful to read and absorb the mood. Like beeskeeker wrote, both work well within context.
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I really like your Night Journey. I will have to investigate the form. thanks for introducing me to it.
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This is a really nice idea. Your take on the poem is good, and I like the straight up and down-ness of the literal translation.
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Great work!
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Thanks!
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Beautiful writing. I grew up in the countryside of North Georgia, and your poem felt like home. Long roads through nowhere, cow fields, woods. Your take on a Chinese poem is stunning.
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Nice work!
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I love what you have done here, this profound “reading.” And, news flash for Harold Bloom, this is not the work of an agonist. This is a work of love.
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Very good. It’s a very worthwhile exercise. I tried a similar exercise a few years ago with the poetry of Bei Dao and although the results weren’t that good at the time I believe that it has helped to improve the structure of my writing. I like this. Like the original it is sparse and says no more than needs to be said.
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It is indeed a worthwhile exercise, tho I’ve not had much success with European poetry.
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I like the imagery of this piece.
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I like this, Robert. We have similar methods. I sometimes use Buddhist parables to help me create an outline for my short stories. It’s nice to see that others are working in this way.
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I borrow from everywhere! And quite frankly I seem to work better under constraints of some sort.
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I like your adaptations. Great work! Well done. I’ll also try a few. Quite encouraging. Thanks for liking my poem “These days”.
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