China Books Review has an excellent essay by Jeff Tompkins on the life and work of Bill Porter, an American who communes with Shaanxi hermits and translates Chinese poetry into English. Tompkins’ essay, and a new documentary on Porter’s work, are an antidote for those of us who spend too much time considering China only through a political lens. The CCP is relentlessly political, of course, and would squeeze all art and intimacy in its fist if it could, but it can't. Porter's work is a reminder of the need to balance political and humanistic factors to attain a full picture of China. As Marilynne Robinson put it: My politics, and my religion as well, are based entirely on the loveliness and value of ordinary human lives. The creaky apparatus called politics shelters or oppresses or threatens these lives, and is therefore of interest.
Not that China’s poets ignore politics; it is one of their major themes.
In 1994, I came on the phrase: 熟读唐诗三百首，不会作诗也会吟 (roughly: If you memorize three hundred Tang poems, you’ll speak like a poet even if you can’t write it.) I took such things as challenges in those days, so I made index cards with pictures on the front and characters on the back and spent several years memorizing. I never hit three hundred and I’ve forgotten most of the short poems I could once recite in my sleep, but the exercise taught me at least two things: falling petals are cool and foreigners cannot understand the Chinese love of country unless they have some Du Fu (国破山河在) and Lu You (死去原知万事空) under their belts. The poets’ brand of noble, battered patriotism set the mold for their descendants and is hugely influential in China today. You’ll need a feel for it if you’re going to make sense of what cabbies and national leaders mean whenever they say “China.” They’re referring to much more than CCP nationalism.
The old poems can speak to American as well as Chinese fears. Consider, for example, Hu Zeng’s (9th century) commentary on the end of the Qin Dynasty:
新建阿房壁未干
沛公兵已入长安
帝王苦竭生灵力
大业沙崩固不难
The walls of the new palace weren’t even dry
when Liu Bang’s army sacked the capital.
When a monarch exhausts the people’s spirit,
mankind’s great works can easily tumble into dust.
On a lighter note, here’s a riff from Billy Collins: Reading an Anthology of Chinese Poems of the Sung Dynasty, I Pause to Admire the Length and Clarity of Their Titles
It seems these poets have nothing
up their ample sleeves
they turn over so many cards so early,
telling us before the first line
whether it is wet or dry,
night or day, the season the man is standing in,
even how much he has had to drink.
Maybe it is autumn and he is looking at a sparrow.
Maybe it is snowing on a town with a beautiful name.
"Viewing Peonies at the Temple of Good Fortune
on a Cloudy Afternoon" is one of Sun Tung Po's.
"Dipping Water from the River and Simmering Tea"
is another one, or just
"On a Boat, Awake at Night."
And Lu Yu takes the simple rice cake with
"In a Boat on a Summer Evening
I Heard the Cry of a Waterbird.
It Was Very Sad and Seemed To Be Saying
My Woman Is Cruel—Moved, I Wrote This Poem."
There is no iron turnstile to push against here
as with headings like "Vortex on a String,"
"The Horn of Neurosis," or whatever.
No confusingly inscribed welcome mat to puzzle over.
Instead, "I Walk Out on a Summer Morning
to the Sound of Birds and a Waterfall"
is a beaded curtain brushing over my shoulders.
And "Ten Days of Spring Rain Have Kept Me Indoors"
is a servant who shows me into the room
where a poet with a thin beard
is sitting on a mat with a jug of wine
whispering something about clouds and cold wind,
about sickness and the loss of friends.
How easy he has made it for me to enter here,
to sit down in a corner,
cross my legs like his, and listen.
中秋
This newsletter is coming out too late for the 2026 holiday, but I thought I’d share my Moonsong list in case you’re planning a Mid-Autumn Festival party for 2027. Call your friends, climb to a rooftop, have a glass of something good, and run these on a continuous loop:
Kangding Love Song, Gu Juan & Li Yizhi
Rooty-Toot-Toot for the Moon, Greg Brown
Old Devil Moon, Nina Simone
Paper Moon, Nat King Cole
Bad Moon Rising, Credence Clearwater Revival
Moon River, Audrey Hepburn
Moonlight in Vermont, Billie Holiday
Dancing in the Moonlight, King Harvest
Blue Moon, The Marcels
That’s Amore, Dean Martin
Blue Moon of Kentucky, Bill Monroe
Moonlight, Bob Dylan
Moon Dance, Van Morrison
Shine on Harvest Moon, Leon Redbone
Man on the Moon, R.E.M.
Fly Me to the Moon, Frank Sinatra
Moonlight Feels Right, Starbuck
Moonshadow, Cat Stevens
Moon Over Bourbon Street, Sting
Drunk on the Moon, Tom Waits
Harvest Moon, Neil Young