Dancing with the Dead

<p><span><span><b>An essential collection from the leading figure of Chinese poetry translation, presenting work of insight, humor, and musicality that continues to resonates across thousands of years.</b></span></span><br></p><p>Red Pine is one of the world's finest translators of Chinese poetic and religious texts. His new anthology, <i>Dancing with the Dead: The Essential Red Pine</i>, gathers over thirty voices from the ancient Chinese past—including Buddhist poets Cold Mountain (Hanshan) and Stonehouse (Shiwu), as well as Tang-dynasty luminaries Wei Yingwu and Liu Zongyuan.</p><p><i>Dancing with the Dead</i><span> also includes translations from such religious texts as Puming’s </span><i>Oxherding Pictures and Verses </i><span>and Lao-Tzu’s</span><i> Daodejing</i><span>, as well as poems and woodblock illustrations from Su Po-Jen’s </span><i>Guide to Capturing a Plum Blossom</i><span>, one of the world’s first printed books of art.? </span></p><p><span>Throughout the book, poems are accompanied by footnotes providing historical context, and each section includes a new and illuminating introduction chronicling Red Pine’s relationship to the poet—discovery, travel, scholarship. </span><span><i>Dancing With The Dead</i></span><span> is more than a book, it is a journey: part travel essay, part road map, part guided meditation. It is a history translated in poem. </span></p><p><span>For Red Pine, “translating the words in a Chinese poem isn’t that hard, but finding the spirit that inspired those words, the music of the heart, and asking it to inspire [his heart], that is how, and why, [he] translates.”  </span></p><p><span> </span><span>“our luggage is full of river travel poems? </span></p><p><span>may we ride forth together again.” </span></p><p><span>– Wei Yingwu</span><br></p><p><span><br></span></p>