"Books that Have Had an Impact on Me" IV

I was introduced to Kenneth Rexroth’s ‘100 Poems from the Chinese’ when I was 32. I was astonished to see that these exquisite and profound poems, many of them written in the 8th, 9th or 10th century, were so contemporary. So relevant to our lives, today. A Buddhist monk who wrote poetry in the year 761, and we, who live in the 21st century, are so alike. We have so much in common. I’ve spent much of my writing life writing about the danger of seeing another person as not quite like you. The danger of deciding that someone who doesn’t share our skin colour, our culture, our language, our religion or our sexual orientation is different. It’s a short, slippery slope from other people being different to becoming indifferent to others.

I like to think of Mei Yao Ch’en who wrote, sometime between the years 1002 and 1060, in a poem called An Excuse For Not Returning The Visit Of A Friend,

”Do not be offended because/I am slow to go out. You know/Me too well for that. On my lap/I hold my little girl. At my/Knees stands my handsome little son./One has just begun to talk./The other chatters without/Stopping. They hang on my clothes/And follow my every step./I can’t get any farther/Than the door. I am afraid/I will never make it to your house.”

From “Books that have had an impact on me,” The Age (Australia) 2008