Beth Ames Swartz - Falling Snow

Falling Snow

Beth Ames Swartz
Falling Snow
acrylic and mixed media on canvas
60" x 48" (1.52m x 1.22m)
2008

杜甫 (Du Fu, also Romanized as Tu Fu, 712–770 a.c.e., Chinese)

對雪	Facing Snow

戰哭多新鬼	Battles, sobbing, many new ghosts.
愁吟獨老翁	Just an old man, I sadly chant poems.
亂雲低薄暮	Into the thin evening, wild clouds dip.
急雪舞回風	On swirling wind, fast dancing snow.
瓢棄樽無綠	A ladle idles by a drained cask of green wine.
爐存火似紅	Last embers redden the empty stove.
數州消息斷	No news, the provinces are cut off.
愁坐正書空	With one finger I write in the air, sorrow.

Translation Selected

Barnstone, Tony and Chou, Ping, ed. & trans. The Anchor Book of Chinese Poetry. New York: Random House, Inc., 2005, 132-3.

Other English Translations

Ayscough, Florence Wheelock and Lowell, Amy, trans. The Autobiography of a Chinese Poet, Vol. I, a.d. 712-759. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1929, 228-9.

Alley, Rewi, trans. Du Fu: Selected Poems. Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 1962 (as Tu Fu: Selected Poems), 2001, 68-9. Part of a multivolume work: Hong Shen, et al. The Cream of Classical Chinese Literature, Vol. 2. Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 2001.

Davis, A(lbert) R(ichard). Tu Fu. New York: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1971, 52.

Rexroth, Kenneth. One Hundred Poems from the Chinese. New York: New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1971, IV, 6. [Rexroth uses skurries rather than scurries.]

Seaton, J. P.& Cryer, James, trans. Bright Moon, Perching Birds: Poems. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1971, 1987, 65.

Owen, Stephen. The Great Age of Chinese Poetry: the High T’ang. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1981, 201, 390-1 (10973)

Wu, Juntao, trans. Tu Fu—a New Translation. Hong Kong: The Commercial Press Ltd, 1981, 54-5.

Hinton, David. The Selected Poems of Tu Fu. New York: New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1988, 1989, 26.

Hamill, Sam, trans. Facing the Snow: Visions of Tu Fu. Fredonia, NY: White Pine Press, 1988, 98. See also: Hamill, Sam, trans. Crossing the Yellow River: 300 Poems from the Chinese. Rochester, NY: BOA Editions, 2000, 163. Also, Hamill, Sam and Seaton, J. P., ed. & trans. The Poetry of Zen, Boston & London: Shambhala, 2004, 51. Hamill, Sam, trans. Endless River. New York: Weatherhill, Inc., 1993, 61.

Holyoak, Keith, trans. Facing the Moon: Poems of Li Bai and Du Fu. Durham, NH: Oyster River, 2007, 102-3.

Dōngbō(東波). Online:http://www.mountainsongs.net/poem_.php?id=199