Hawk of the Mind: Collected Poems

by Yang Mu, Michelle Yeh (Editor)

Yang Mu is a towering figure in modern Chinese poetry. His poetic voice is subtle and lyrical, and his work is rich with precise images and crystalline thoughts invoking temporality and remembrance. A bold innovator and superb craftsman, he elegantly combines cosmopolitan experimentation with poetic forms and an allusive reverence for classical Chinese poetry while remaining rooted in his native Taiwan and its colonial history.

Hawk of the Mind is a comprehensive collection of Yang Mu’s poetry that presents crucial works from the many stages of his long creative career, rendered into English by a team of distinguished translators. It conveys the complexity and beauty of Yang Mu’s work in a stately and lucid English poetic register that displays his ability to range from meditative to playful and colloquial to archaic. The volume includes an editor’s introduction and definitive commentary that offer insights into the poet’s major themes and motifs, explaining how he draws on deep engagement with Chinese and Western literary traditions, history, and art as well as mythology, philosophy, and music and a profound love for the natural world to create a nuanced and multifaceted artistic universe. It also contains translations of prefaces and afterwords written by Yang Mu for collections of his poetry. Hawk of the Mind demonstrates the breadth and depth of Yang Mu’s oeuvre, illustrating the distinctive style and affective power of a great poet.

Genres: Poetry

248 pages, Paperback

Published April 10, 2018

About the author

Yang Mu was the pen name of a Taiwanese poet, essayist and critic in Chinese language. He was born as Wang Ching-hsien on 6 September 1940 in Hualien County, Taiwan.
As one of the representative figures in the field of contemporary Taiwanese literature, his work is known for its combining of the graceful style and writing techniques of Chinese classical poetry with elements of Western culture. Apart from romantic feelings, his works also reflect strong awareness of humanistic concern, which has thus brought him widespread attention and high respect. He was named the laureate of the 2013 Newman Prize for Chinese Literature, making him the first poet and the first Taiwanese writer to have won the award.

Reviews

[Edita · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tell me, what is oblivion
What is total oblivion? Dead wood
covered by the decrepit moss of a dying universe
When fruits ripen and drop to dark earth
and summer becomes fall before they rot in murky shadow
When the abundance and crimson of two seasons
with slight pressure break free
suddenly turn to ashes and dust
When the blossom’s fragrance sinks into grass like a falling star
Stalactites drooping to touch ascending stalagmites
Or when a stranger’s footsteps pass
in a drizzle through red lacquered arches
and come to a stop at the fountain
solidifying into a hundred statues of nothingness—
That is oblivion, whose footstep leaves a ravine
between your eyebrows and mine
like a mountain grove without echo
embracing primeval anxiety
Tell me, what is memory
if you once lose yourself in the sweetness of death?
What is memory if you blow out a lamp
and bury yourself in eternal darkness
*
In silence I repeatedly arrange
one or two sentences. But
giving up without a word is finally most beautiful
even though I’d still like to speak
Then I think if we just sit here like this
on an idle afternoon
facing the intermingling sea and sky
cries of waterfowl
coming from the pier now and then …
You blink your eyes, lean forward to search
but the birds are already
gone
*
And you are the most beautiful, leaning against
a warm chair
peaceful, trusting, engrossed
with no trace of calculation. Only when your will
in a complete fairytale
gallops side by side with passion across hills and rivers
through wind and rain, sunshine, moonlight
through feasts and adversities, are you most beautiful—
in a large illustrated book
the banner and armor of a knightly vanguard
or in a tryst behind drawn curtains
when two hold the longest gaze
without sentimentality
*
When I
focus my whole spirit on capturing everything
and drawing it all to my heart, I don’t know whether it is
loneliness or grief, and at this moment I face
the great river, passionately beckoning to the wind
A row of shriveled willows bows down as if to thunder
while I stand alone on a spot where time and space clash
gray hair streaming, gradually
blurring as skies darken, an accord reached at last
To be sure, all possession and loss is nothing but emptiness
*
Memory is dancing flames
scorching my ruined wings and dimming
my shining gaze, my
hopes, and good judgment
*
Ah, at this moment when the reborn willow in my memory
bends down to touch the ripples of nothingness, autumn has
come and gone many times, more frequently
and punctually than a meteor’s appointment, though more
aloof now. It glides swiftly across my dimming eyes
like a rainbow arriving tentatively at an unfaithful nation of sadness
its light soon extinguished. And memory trembles in its usual way
as the heart dissolves into air of alternating light and darkness  
*
Only when loneliness also becomes mine and mine
alone, when all corners of the world are filled with strange signs that
the universe is bound to fall, I stand in a wilderness just after a thunderstorm has passed
trying to explain various recurrent omens
For you, with agreed-upon formulae
straight into a vaguely affectionate heart, insisting on breaking it
When boundless loneliness proves to be entirely mine
and no one else but you who wander destitute at life’s crossroads
With you alone, I am reluctant to part

[Víctor Bermúdez · Rating 3 out of 5]

LISTENING TO THE WIND

Sometimes it enters the ravines in a futtering display alone
from the depths of cloud and haze, a stranger to the young god
Each equally unknowing, they avoid ever meeting
avoid the soul's place. Until
in fumbling self-discovery, they realize that once
beside a pool they both slipped, struggled to regain balance
trembled between gravity's pull and weightlessness
The same emptiness in a fluttering pose

[Zhi Zhi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite the translators' good effort, some expressions just cannot be translated. There are some poems that don't make as much sense as their Chinese version, and I find that a pity. So, when you are reading the book, bear in mind that this is after all a translation, which means you should not judge Yang Mu's literary talent based on his translated works.