Taoism, Ch’an and The Tang Dynasty Poets

2 Wednesdays

June 19 & 26
7:15-8:45

led by Michael G. Smith, PhD

Considered the golden age of China, the Chinese Tang Dynasty was a flowering periodically interrupted by uprisings, invasions, starvation and mass migration. Inspired by Nature and educated within the tenets of Taoism and Buddhism the Tang poets responded with plain-spoken poems of hardships and the natural world that resonate today. In this series we will discuss several poets, including Li Po, Du Fu and Cold Mountain, with respect to their historical context and respond with our poems written during the workshop and elsewhere.

During two sessions, the workshop will explore Tang Dynasty history and life, and the influence on its poets; important Taoist and Buddhist teachings relevant to Tang poets; and the challenge of translating poems written in a homophonous language into English. There will be time in each session for participants to craft poems modeled by the Tang poets, if desired.

Suggested Reading List – before class, if you can.

Awakened Cosmos|The Mind of Classical Chinese Poetry by David Hinton;
China’s Cosmopolitan Empire: The Tang Dynasty, by Mark Edward Lewis;
China Root: Taoism, Ch’an, and Original Zen, by David Hinton;
Finding Them Gone: Visiting China’s Poets of the Past, by Red Pine;
In the Same Light:200 Tang Poems for Our Century, translations by Wong May;
The Banished Immortal: A Life of Li Bai, by Li Bai and Ha Jin;
The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain, by Cold Mountain and Red Pine;
The Silk Dragon: Translations from the Chinese, by Arthur Sze.