Chinese Zen Poems: What Hold Has This Mountian

by Larry Smith, Wang Wei

"Chinese Zen Poems: What Hold Has This Mountain?" presents a fresh bilingual collection of more than 100 poems from China, selected and translated for their Zen spirit. Drawn from twenty centuries of writing, the book includes poems by such favorites as Han Shan, Shih Te, Wang Wei, Li Po, Tu Fu, Pai Chu I, Chiao Jan, Yin Luan, Su Shih, Chin Kung, Chun An, and many others.

Genres: Poetry

112 pages, Paperback

First published October 10, 1999

About the author

Smith is the author of 9 books of poetry and 6 books of fiction as well as two memoirs and two literary biographies of Kenneth Patchen and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. He is married to Ann Smith, a professor of nursing, with 3 adult children and 8 grandchildren. He taught at BGSU Firelands College in Ohio for 38 years. His most recent work includes The Thick of Thin: Memoirs of a Working-Class Writer (2017) and Thoreau's Lost Journal: Poems (2018, new enlarged edition).

Reviews

[Drew M Francis · Rating 5 out of 5]

VILLAGE OF THE DEER STOCKADE
by Wang Wei

On this lonely mountain, I see no one,
yet I hear an echo of voices.
The sun sets in distant woods
and shines above green moss.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best part about this anthology is that the translators included the poems in the original Chinese alongside their translations.