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Morton Marcus: This is KUSP, listener supported radio on the Monterey Bay, Santa Clara Valley, and Big Sur. Stay tuned for the Poetry Show, which tonight will feature Chinese poetry, the special guest, Sandy Lydon.

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Good evening, everybody and welcome to the Poetry Show. This is Mort Marcus and what I have to say tonight all is, Gung Hay Fat Choy, which is happy new year in Chinese. And as you know, Chinese music is going on this very moment in celebration

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of it. And I want to thank Plaza Books on Pacific Avenue for making a good deal of the show possible with a generous donation. I am sitting here tonight with Sandy Lydon who is the history instructor at Cabrillo College. And Sandy,

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welcome to the Poetry Show. Sandy Lydon: Hi, Mort. Nice to be here. Morton Marcus: Nice to have you here and as we start off with the music in the background, which I am now going to slowly

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fade out, would you tell us what Chinese New Years is all about, what year this is, and it has something to do with a rabbit. Sandy Lydon: Well, the Chinese, being an agrarian people divided -- really worked on a calendar that was based on the moon

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rather than the sun -- and divided the year into twelve lunar months and also divided the whole cycle of years into twelve cyclical animals. And so they have twelve lunar months, each of which are, say twenty-nine, thirty days long.

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And then there are twelve years, twelve animals that have been adopted as a symbol. The problem with the lunar calendar is that if you have months that are, say, twenty days long, and you've got a three hundred and sixty-five and a quarter day

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year, it eventually gets way off. And so they would insert, about every twenty to twenty-fifth year they would insert an intercalary month to get the calendar back in order again. But basically, the animals sort of rotate through.

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We are entering the year of the hare, or the rabbit, or the bunny, depending upon which which way you want to describe it. We are in the year four thousand six hundred and eighty-five. Always gives one pause to consider it.

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Morton Marcus: It does indeed. Sandy Lydon: Yes. Just when we think that we're pretty smart, you get four thousand six hundred and eighty-five. They officially stopped, the Chinese officially dropped the lunar

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calendar in 1912. Morton Marcus: That was the year of the republic came in. Sandy Lydon: Well, that's correct. And that was part of the sort of a symbolic kind of embracing of

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Western stuff, they- they dropped it. Although, it's still quite widely followed, but they really work on two different calendars now. And then for all intents and purposes, I think the Chinese New Year is probably, or the Lunar New

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Years, as it's probably more appropriatly called, is more widely celebrated outside China than perhaps it is in. Morton Marcus: Hm. Sandy Lydon: But at any rate, it's a celebration, it's a

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spring, it's the first- it kicks off the year because they believe it's a harbinger of spring. And notice that we have groundhog's days and other things that kind of do- the Lunar New Year is closer to the beginning of spring than the

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solar, in many ways it's much more appropriate and so they see it as the beginning of the new year. And the new [unintelligible] there are twenty-four -- things are always in multiples of twelve and twenty-four -- twenty-four

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traditional festivals in the Chinese year and that's the first one. And it's a new time; you clean up house, you get things squared away. Morton Marcus: If it is a new time, it would be obvious that,

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let's just say this, this nation forty-five odd thousand years, what actually would you list as the history of this nation as a continuous civilization? How long would you say that China has been a continuous civilization?

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Sandy Lydon: Well, I think at least four thousand six hundred and eighty-five years. It is the longest lived, continuous, unbroken civilization on earth, right? Morton Marcus: Right. And so put that against the two hundred and

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eleven years of the United States and that is the pause- Sandy Lydon: Sure, we're a veritable pimple on the nose of Chinese history in terms of its magnitude, of length of time, but you know, you also have to consider the enormity of the

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changes that we have wrought, so- Morton Marcus: In so short a time, yeah. China has a great Yeah and I also I think that there's- from my view, there's civilization, and I say this as sort of a segue into the show,

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is also maybe the nation, the culture, if you will, that has given us maybe the greatest poetry that the world has ever another realm of this whole thing, which is the Overseas known, certainly the greatest number of poets, they keep

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surfacing because there have been so few translated that every five or ten years or so, you come across another great Chinese master who no one ever heard of. And when I went to college, I think there must be around five or six Chinese poets

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regularly being translated now are anywhere from a thousand to fifteen hundred years old that we never went over in class, and that now are having whole books dedicated to them as more and more people learn Chinese.

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Chinese who continue the tradition, right, Chinese-American. And of course, if you did not recognize who I was talking to, I am talking to the author of, "Chinese Gold: the Chinese in

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the Monterey Bay Area," a very, very fine book. And I was sort of, suddenly the board here threw me for a second. I couldn't see what- Sandy Lydon: I noticed that you were scrambling a bit.

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Morton Marcus: Well, Diana warned you. Sandy Lydon: But hey, poets can't handle those knobs I'm- Morton Marcus: Well, they don't know that at KUSP, though. I think they're beginning to find out.

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Diana: They know, Mort. Sandy Lydon: They know. Morton Marcus: At any rate, let's start off with some of these poems of refreshment and do you have any New Year's

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poems? Sandy Lydon: No, actually, I didn't. Being terribly historic and appropriate, I didn't. I didn't find anything that would be really appropriate for a new year, but I'm sure you have one.

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Look at the large book you have there, Mort. Morton Marcus: It just so happens. I do have somebody one of the great Chinese poets of all time, and when I say that, I'm of course talking around five, six thousand poets, but

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this is a poet who translate very easily into English an maybe I'll read several of them He's wonderful, he's known fo spontaneity. He united both th Confucian and the Taoist strain and Chinese life, which mea s that he united the soci

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l responsibility on one hand wi h the concern with transcende t mystical knowledge, which had o do with nature or living with n society, living without societ Sandy Lydon: Kind of a cross between, say somebody, a banker

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and a street person. Morton Marcus: Let me think about that one. Sandy Lydon: Yeah, right. Morton Marcus: Street person's okay, but the banker?

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Sandy Lydon: Well, see that's the social- well, yeah, that maybe that doesn't work either. Morton Marcus: Anyway, his name is Su Dongpo, or as he's also known, Su Shi, and he lived from 1037 to 1101 AD, and he lived in

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the Song Dynasty and here are two poems of his on New Years. One is on seeing the old year out and is dated actually 1062: Want to know what a year's like? A snake slithering through a field. He's half gone before you know he's there. Do you think

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you can keep him from getting away by grabbing his tail and pulling? Pull all you like and it won't do any good. The children struggle to stay awake, they chatter and laugh. But I don't want the cock to crow nor the watch drum to beat the hour.

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We sit so long the lamp burns out. I rise and watch the last stars. How could I hope the New Year wouldn't come? I refuse to think of the failures it may bring. Better to hold on to this night where I can still brag that I'm young.

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That was a very personal one but he was a governor and a magistrate. And he wrote a lot of changes in China and still in Hangzhou. He is known for the lake and what he did by restructuring a part of the lake-

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Sandy Lydon: And there is a bridge across the middle of that lake, it's one of those wonderful arched, many archstone, bridges that the Chinese were so good at building which is named for him, Su Dongpo Bridge and it goes all

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the way across the lake. And my memory of it was in summer, a couple of summers ago when we were there it was so hot, it's very hot -- very hot in that city in the summertime -- but that young Chinese college students would sort of promenade

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across the bridge and hide in the bushes and... yeah. Morton Marcus: I mean, individually, they just hide in the bushes? Sandy Lydon: No, actually, there was more like two of them at a

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time. Morton Marcus: Oh, I see. Oh, isn't it- they just hide in the bushes that way? Sandy Lydon: They seem to be. I don't- perhaps-

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Morton Marcus: You don't peer into the bushes, you're not a peerer. Sandy Lydon: No, it's not a good idea. They're perhaps exchanging couplets. Or something.

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Morton Marcus: Ah, yes, that's it, yes. Oh, I don't want to pursue that. Anyway, here's another kind of Su Dongpo poem. This one and the last one I read, by the way, are my versions. And this shows the other part of him as magistrate

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and the real wonderful feeling he has for people, for the plight of the common people, which was very much a concern of his. In fact, he even invented, as I remember, a kind of irrigation situation so that the people would be able to have

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food. And here is: 1070 NEW YEAR'S EVE It's New Year's Eve, I should be home, but official business keeps me here. Weeping I raise the brush and face them, pitiful

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convicts in chains, little men who tried to fill their bellies but fell into the law's net. They don't understand the word, 'disgrace.' And I? Clutching to a meager salary, I've kept my job instead of retiring. Does that make me wiser than they?

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All of us scheme to earn our bread. It's New Year's Eve, the ancients would have freed them for a while. Do I dare? I am silent and ashamed. Sandy Lydon: That's very nice. That's a very nice poem.

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Morton Marcus: Yeah, he's terrific. I discovered him, Professor May Yi-Bao introduced me to him and I've just become a great fancier of his. Sandy- Sandy Lydon: And of course, the tradition, the tradition at the

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end of the year, there's a much more of an official -- I don't know how you call it, break and cycling that goes on that -- for example, in the scheme of things, traditionally, and Chinese-Americans would do this too, would try to pay all their

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debts, have their books cleared y the end of the year, so th t there was a- you try not to ca ry loans over, you know. So on ew Year's Eve and a little bit efore New Year's Eve, you go round and neaten things up nd I think that's kind of a

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ice- there's a settling of every Morton Marcus: Dare I say, it's very civilized. [Laughing] Sandy Lydon: No, you daren't. Morton Marcus: Anyway, Sandy, regale us with a poem.

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Sandy Lydon: Well, one of my favorites and I was- when you gave me the challenge, you know, when a poet asks a historian to go pick up poets, I'm very intimidated but, Joe Stroud, your very own department-

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Morton Marcus: And the other host of the show. Sandy Lydon: Right, but hollered at me the other day and said, "You're going to be on Mort's show, are you going to read any Han Shan?" And, of course, my brain wasn't working and I had

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completely forgotten about, "Cold Mountain," and Han Shan, and Han Shan is one of my favorites. Han Shan literally translated means 'Cold Mountain.' And it's a series of poems, the ones that I'm going to be working out of here are

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translated by Burton Watson, Columbia University, goes back into the 70s, a series that was issued by the Oriental Studies Department at Columbia University. Morton Marcus: By the way, there is now a book out, which is the

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translations of Burton Watson, everything he has done from Columbia University. And not only has he done this wonderful Han Shan book, but he has also done Su Dongpo, collections of Su Dongpo, which is excellent.

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Sandy Lydon: He did, [unidentified], he did almost everybody. And of course, Gary Snyder, a lot of people have- Morton Marcus: Snyder's done excellent Han Shan. Sandy Lydon: They've all messed with Han Shan. And I just-

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there's a whole bunch of things. Basically, it's a combination of- it's- they argue whether- the Taoists like to believe that they claim him, the Zen Buddhists claim him, everybody claims him, and I don't think we need to label what he did, but

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there's just a nice irreverent feeling. And I was going to start with the one about poets and writers in general, which sort of recognizes our problem: Here we languish, a bunch of poor scholars, battered by

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extremes of hunger and cold. Out of work, our only joy is poetry. Scribble, scribble, we wear out our brains. Who will read the works of such men? On that point, you can save your sighs. We could inscribe our poems on biscuits and the homeless dogs

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wouldn't deign to nibble. Not very optimistic, is he? Morton Marcus: But very right on, as we say in Chinese. Sandy Lydon: Scribble, scribble. How does that feel, Mort?

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Morton Marcus: Well, I've tried to feed biscuits, poems to dogs, and they sniff them and saunter away with their clicking nails on the pavements and I gather the biscuits up because I'll be arrested for littering the streets, of course. Read us

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another one. Han Shan is really wonderful. He retired to the mountains and refused to have anything to do with the world and became very, very famous living up in this very mountain that supposedly bears his name and-

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Sandy Lydon: He's got that wonderful- there's that sort of- he straight-armed the world as it were and just sat up there and much in the spirit of some of the other Tang Dynasty folk. And the themes are fairly universal, I think throughout

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they're very similar, but he says them all differently. Let me try another one. Okay, this is number- for those of you that are reading in your hymnals, this is number twenty-seven of the ninety-nine, that- or a hundred that Burton Watson

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translated. Wise men may be free of greed, but not the fool who loves to dig for gold. His fields encroach on his neighbor's lands. And the bamboo grove? This is all mine. See him elbow

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his way in search of money, gnash his teeth, and drive his horses and slaves. Look there beyond the city gates, how many grave mounds under the pine? We're all going to the same place, Mort, that's what he

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says. Morton Marcus: You know, can you tell us the story about when the official came from the Emperor to talk with him after he'd become very famous, and he was still grabbing food out of the

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kitchen of the monastery up in the mountain? You know that story? Sandy Lydon: No. Morton Marcus: Oh.

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Sandy Lydon: It's probably similar to the one about [unidentified], but go ahead. I mean, I'm- Morton Marcus: Well, go on. Why don't you tell me that one? This now may be the same one.

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Sandy Lydon: Well it's the one about that- he makes the analogy that he's a tortoise, he'd rather be a- Basically, they came and offered him an official post and- [unidentified] was offered an official post and the government officials came to him

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and I don't know, he was lying on a bridge or standing on his head in the dirt or fishing -- fishing, which was one of the universal pursuits, it was considered to be totally positive by the Taoists and totally negative by the

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government -- and he, when asked to take this official position, which for, traditionally for the Chinese was an enormous thing that meant lifelong, you know, you had the job for life and then all your relatives would be supported by the government and

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everybody that thought they were irrelevant. And basically what he said was: I'd rather be a tortoise with my tail in the mud than to be a dead tortoise, which is the way he saw the- you know. What was the story that you- ?

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Morton Marcus: Well, it- as I remember it, and I'm sort of- I wanted you to choose because I hardly remembered this. Sandy Lydon: It's late, yes, it's late. Morton Marcus: As I remembered and I'm not sure, but finally

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this governor came up, the great official train up the mountain, which is a very difficult mountain, I mean, it wasn't supposed to be transgressed or- by anybody. And he spied this man standing behind the tree, and he said, "You!" He says,

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"I'm looking for Han Shan, and this is the governor of the province who wants to see him, go get him." And the man was Han Shan. And he says, "I want to give him again," you know, "wealth and things." And Han Shan come out of the tree, and

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he heard this great talk about all the prizes he was going to get and broke out giggling hysterically, turned around, and ran away. And I mean that is sort of the kind of thing- the way he is depicted with his friend who is a lay monk in the

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monastery, the name was Shi-te, is they just stand around giggling all the time. Sandy Lydon: Rolling around, they're depicted in paintings as gnarled, sort of old men laughing hysterically and

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rolling around in the dirt. Morton Marcus: That one's [unidentified]. One more. Sandy Lydon: He's always- he's always challenging us, of course, to come up Cold Mountain and get squared away, as it

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were. I guess- he would say that wouldn't he? Morton Marcus: Get out of the world of the red dust. Sandy Lydon: Right, and come up and get squared away with me. This is:

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NUMBER FORTY I climb the road to Cold Mountain, the road to Cold Mountain that never ends. The valleys are long and strewn with stones, the streams broad and banked with thick grass. Moss is

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slippery, though no rain has fallen. Pines sigh, but it isn't the wind. Who can break away from the snares of the world and sit with me among the white clouds? Break away from the snares of the world, Mort, that's what

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we've got to do. Why don't you and I just go off right now? Morton Marcus: Right now! We're going to end this program right this minute. Let's see what happens. Sandy Lydon: Close the transmitter down and let's go

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off, let's do a hill. Morton Marcus: Let's see. You see, the thing is, I make so many mistakes here anyway, that they won't know whether I've done it on purpose so we might as well just stay and read

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poetry. Okay, let me get back to some of the great ones, the big guns, as we say. And this is the great Li Bao. And what I'm going to do, if I ever find out where I put everything here, is that I am going to read my translation, which really is not much, it's

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such a short poem, on one of the most famous four-line end-stops, that is four characters per line for four lines of sixteen characters all told. But before, well, after I do that, I'm going to read it in English. This is no embellishment, folks, this is

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the way it reads. And then I'm going to play a Chinese gentleman reading the poem in Chinese. This is the great Tang Dynasty poet Li Bao, and it looks like it should be, or Li Bai as some people pronounce it, it looks like it should be Li

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Po, P-O, because of this transliteration we have with Chinese which was really faulty before and is now getting much more accurate. He lived from 701 to 762 and is one of the great free spirits of Chinese poetry. In fact, a lot of people feel he

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does not fit in because he is always talking about dreams and a life here after almost a fairy tale world. He also uses masks and that is he writes in the voices of women, some very, very touching poems. Everyone knows the story what he used to love

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to do, he used to love to get drunk, write his poems, and make them into little boats and then sail them down streams and rivers and, you know, and so he didn't really need them but he's a total free spirit in Chinese poetry.

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Sandy Lydon: Took his clothes off a lot, if I remember correctly, he took his clothes off and ran into the bushes, he did. Morton Marcus: Okay, you think he's there with the couplets?

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Anyway, here is four-line end-stop, and then I'm going to play it in Chinese and I'll read it again to you and you can really hear -- remember, Chinese is a monosyllabic language, every character which is a word, is one sound -- and so you hav

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sixteen sounds in a sixtee character poem. And it's al done in different tones and th language is so different fro English that we tried to mak this bridge in some way an translators have used a millio different manners to do it. Her

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is NOCTURNAL THOUGHTS by Li Bao At the foot of the bed, bright moonlight. Could it be frost on the earth? Raising my head, I look at the bright moon.

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Lowering my head, I think of home. Unknown: [Nocturnal Thoughts by Li Bao in Chinese] Morton Marcus: And once again, "Nocturnal Thoughts," by Li Bao: At the foot of the bed, bright moonlight. Could it be frost on

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the earth? Raising my head, I look at the bright moon. Lowering my head, I think of home. Okay, Sandy? Sandy Lydon: That's very strong. Isn't it nice?

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Morton Marcus: Yeah. That is something that every Chinese child used to learn in school and I'm sure still does in China now. I had it memorized, and sually I memorize it much aster than that and a little reathless, right, like we

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lways used to- Mary, Mary, lease get up. [Breathes like he s out of breath] But it is amazi g how Chinese adults and child en, who have any education at ll, remember these poems and a l t of them know these poems beca se they have come down through

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the centuries almost as folk so gs an Sandy Lydon: Well, one of his buddy pals, or contemporaries, I guess, and if my memory serves me, they were friends was Du Fu. Morton Marcus: Yes.

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Sandy Lydon: And I have a little fairly lengthy little thing here by Du Fu. The two of them cavorted much, as Han Shan and his friend did, if my memory serves me. Morton Marcus: The interesting thing is, I remember is that Tu

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Fu actually wrote poems to Li Bao in reverence and Li Bao never answered. But there was no problem between both men, they really liked each other. By people, generally speaking, the greatest poet in all of China is Tu Fu, who, if you're wondering

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how that's spelled, it's T-U F-U, but the correct pronunciation is Du Fu. Anyway, that Sandy pronounces things, and I pronounce things if you've got a choice. Sandy Lydon: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, but the dates- Tu Fu's

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dates are 712 to 770 so they're- he's a contemporary. This is titled, "A Good Place to Live," this is from a collection- a nice little book that I used to use in a Chinese history class that I did called, "The Taoist's Vision," by William McNaughton,

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which has a whole series of little Taoist poems and snippets as much of the Taoist stuff was. A GOOD PLACE TO LIVE by Tu Fu The white flower stream's waters water the western bank. For me,

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they chose a wooded dam's retreat. I knew once out of the city, the world's business would fade, and there would be clear waters to melt the traveler's grief. Beyond counting, dragonflies in twos, leap and dip. A single pair of mandarin

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ducks, facing, dive and drift. Let's go east ten thousand li. I am born on a moment's urge. Start out to the north slope, and set afloat the skiff. Morton Marcus: Very nice, and that image again, which

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continually happens in Chinese poetry, of the boat, being the soul of the imagination, moving out down the rivers into- Sandy Lydon: And the mandarin ducks, mandarin ducks are very important in Chinese imagery because they mate for life, and

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so there's always constant references to them as being measures of fidelity and all those good things. Morton Marcus: If Li Bao, by the way, was the great free spirit, Du Fu was totally caught up in the life of the country. He was

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an official. He was exiled again and again and again, and really his family suffered. He was at one point, even though he had been of some high position, one of his children actually starved to death. And he really felt the pains of the people. Again,

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these great poets, though they were Mandarin, so they were above the people, always really felt the pain of the people, the suffering of the people very much, and that is why he is loved because he is within the life. And his poems are very,

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very moving they're beautifully written, as are Li Bao's, but they're coming from totally different places. Another reason Li Bao might not have answered him, by the way, is that he was around twelve years older. And that difference alone would make

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him the senior poet, that whole thing that goes on with the Chinese and that. Sandy Lydon: So he had already been ranked. Morton Marcus: Let me read, to end this first half hour -- I

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can't believe that it's gone -- one of the translations I worked on harder than any other. Or, one of my favorite poems, this is Li Bao, wandering as he did, away from the cities in the country. This is called, "The Hard Road to Shu," which we now

00:30:52.830 - 00:31:10.530

know is Sichuan County- Sichuan Province. Sichuan County, how's that for provincialism? And I call it, "The Hard Road to Sichuan," and just let your mind, dear listener, listen to what really amounts to be a scroll painting. A beautiful

00:31:10.530 - 00:31:32.280

description of the high-rugged mountain country of Sichuan or Shu and this is Li Bao traveling there. And this will end the first part of the show on Chinese poetry, in honor of the Year of the Rabbit, the Chinese New Year:

00:31:32.670 - 00:31:52.080

THE HARD ROAD TO SICHUAN High and hard is the road to Sichuan, higher and harder than the road to heaven. Can Cong and Yu Fu first pierced this country and there was trade between the kingdoms. It took forty-eight

00:31:52.080 - 00:32:09.810

thousand years to penetrate the mountain barrier. And even today, to the west, the Great White Mountain has only a bird's path leading up to the peak of E'mei Mountain. The earth crumbled, mountain split, brave men died. Others coming after

00:32:09.810 - 00:33:06.120

built a road of ladders with stone bridges in a connecting chain. Above- [cut-off]. Hello again, this is the Poetry Show. This is Mort Marcus, and with classical Chinese music in the background I would like to

00:33:06.120 - 00:33:23.430

make some announcements, public announcements. First of all, in celebration of Quarry West Number 23 -- one of the fine local but nationally distributed literary magazines put out at UCSC, which will be hot off the presses -- local poets will be

00:33:23.430 - 00:33:38.130

reading from their work on Tuesday, February 17th, starting at 7:30pm at the Santa Cruz Actor's Theater in the Art Center behind India Joze's. Re ders will include Juan Ph lippe Herrera, Mark Ro riguez, Barbara Bloom, [u

00:33:38.910 - 00:34:00.610

identified], Charles At inson, Richard Hill, David Sw nger, Mort Marcus and others. An those are poets who appear in Number 22 and Number 23 of Qu rry West. We'll be announcing th In celebration of Black History Month, which as most of you know

00:33:52.290 - 00:34:11.230

t again, that is on the 17th. is this month, Oakes College on the UC Santa Cruz campus will present a poetry reading featuring some of the Bay Area's most distinguished poets. The poets will be reading from their

00:34:11.230 - 00:34:28.000

works, and they are Lucille Clifton, Peter Harris, Kolamu Kashi(?) and Linge Daly(?). This event will take place on Tuesday evening, February 17th at 7pm in the Oakes College lounge on the UCSC campus. Admission is free and the seating is limited.

00:34:28.330 - 00:34:38.350

Well, there you got your choice, right there because there are two events on the 17th. I'd also like to announce creative writing classes. Explore your writing talents, meet other writers, learn to

00:34:38.350 - 00:34:56.530

have fun, Creative Writing 1, beginning 7:30 to 10pm on Wednesdays, starting the third month, 3/11 and going all the way to May the 30th. And then there's Creative Writing 2 which is from 1 to 4pm on Wednesdays also. The instructor is the

00:34:56.590 - 00:35:13.240

excellent local poet, Barbara Bloom, who has been on both Joe's poem- Joe's program and my program, and is really wonderful. In fact, you can see some of her works in the current Porter Gulch Review put out by Cabrillo College. That's Barbara

00:35:13.240 - 00:35:29.500

Bloom and call 429-3966 for more information, that is a creative writing class being taught by Barbara Bloom, 429-3966 for more information. Next week on the Poetry Show, a post-Valentine program featuring

00:35:29.500 - 00:35:47.620

love poems from India, exotic and erotic poems from the Sanskrit and Tamil by my fellow host and brother poet and brother, Joe Stroud, who likes Han Shan and yelled at Sandy. And the last announcement, and the most unfortunate one, this

00:35:47.620 - 00:36:06.700

past Saturday, Miriam Malloy, a poet who has lived in Santa Cruz for some time, suddenly died. And services for her will be held tomorrow at 4pm at the Unitarian Church on Freedom Boulevard. You've heard Miriam on this program, she was not

00:36:06.700 - 00:36:24.520

young, but she certainly was young in spirit. And she had the energy and love of poetry and love of creativity and love of life that I would certainly hope would have her friends come out tomorrow at 4pm, Unitarian Church on Freedom Boulevard. I

00:36:24.520 - 00:36:38.940

will be there for sure. And now with my guest, Sandy Lydon, we are going to continue our rather desultory reading of Chinese poetry. Sandy Lydon: What does that mean?

00:36:41.930 - 00:36:52.220

Morton Marcus: I knew someone would do that and you're the only one in this room. What does desultory mean? It sounded right at that point. Sandy Lydon: You said it right but I don't have- I have-

00:36:52.270 - 00:37:05.260

Morton Marcus: Okay, well, it's sort of we're just doing a hit or a shot at some of our favorite poems. And Sandy, I'm going to take the music off, and there it goes. And- Sandy Lydon: Why didn't we have firecrackers? We should have had

00:37:05.260 - 00:37:18.500

firecrackers here. Morton Marcus: There was firecrackers on the cover of the album but since everything was in Chinese- Sandy Lydon: We almost- we had it close here, firecrackers

00:37:18.500 - 00:37:23.080

would have been wonderful. Morton Marcus: Yeah. Sandy Lydon: It's against the law- Morton Marcus: To play them over the radio.?

00:37:23.110 - 00:37:36.710

Sandy Lydon: No. Shoot them off in the city as I understand it, yeah, because it's designed, as you well know, to scare away evil spirits. Yeah, I have one other Li Bao here. Morton Marcus: Great.

00:37:37.740 - 00:37:47.660

Sandy Lydon: This is translated by Ezra Pound and that makes me nervous, but- Morton Marcus: Is this one I think it is? Oh, if this is the one I think it is, that is just so great. Fantastic.

00:37:47.690 - 00:37:57.140

Sandy Lydon: It's probably not now that you've done that to me. Whatever it is, say that it is okay? Morton Marcus: Okay, if it isn't, then I'm going to read it next.

00:37:57.990 - 00:38:17.280

Sandy Lydon: Okay, this is called, "Ancient Wisdom, Rather Cosmic," and it makes an allusion to a poem. I believe that the first person who wrote it was [unidentified] and it has to do with- and then I guess it was Kafka who took it in

00:38:17.280 - 00:38:30.650

"Metamorphosis," when you wake up, you're not sure whether you're whatever you are. This is Ezra Pound: ANCIENT WISDOM RATHER COSMIC So-shu dreamed, and having dreamed that he was a bird, a

00:38:30.650 - 00:38:43.430

bee, and a butterfly, he was uncertain why he should try to feel like anything else. Hence his contentment. Very nice and to the point there, Mort. Morton Marcus: Why don't you read it again, Sandy?

00:38:44.690 - 00:38:57.620

Sandy Lydon: Did you miss it? Oh, okay, all right. So-shu dreamed, and having dreamed that he was a bird, a bee, and a butterfly, he was uncertain why he should try to feel like anything else. Hence his contentment.

00:39:00.030 - 00:39:14.250

Morton Marcus: Beautiful, again, it's one of those four-line end-stops. And he just- and all Chinese poets can dash these on. Four-line end-stop is sort of the sonnet form, I guess you could say, in Chinese. The one I thought you were going to read-

00:39:14.300 - 00:39:24.870

Sandy Lydon: Go ahead, go ahead. You do that. Morton Marcus: Is, "The Jewel Stairs' Grievance," and it's just so beautifully done by Pound. Pound makes, as far as I'm concerned, enormous mistakes in trying to translate this so

00:39:24.870 - 00:39:38.340

foreign language and foreign poetry, but in this one he's right on. And this is Li Bao's, 'The Jewel Stairs' Grievance," and I'll read his notes after it as he explains the poem because what we are not saying here is that Chinese poetry is all

00:39:38.340 - 00:39:49.140

suggested. You don't come out and say things, you suggest them. So I'll read the poem, I'll read the notes and then I'll read the poem again. It's very short. THE JEWEL STAIRS' GRIEVANCE

00:39:50.650 - 00:40:08.410

The jewelled steps are already quite white with dew. It is so late that the dew soaks my gauze stockings, and I let down the crystal curtain and watch the moon through the clear autumn. Now, first of all, this is one of those mask poems, he's

00:40:08.410 - 00:40:22.930

speaking in the voice of a woman. And here is Pound's notes on this: Jewel stairs, therefore, a palace. Grievance, therefore, there is something to complain of. Gauze stockings, therefore,

00:40:22.990 - 00:40:38.380

a court lady is speaking, not a servant who complains. Clear autumn, therefore, he has no excuse on account of weather. Also, she has come early for the dew has not merely whiten the stairs but has soaked her stockings, she's been waiting.

00:40:38.710 - 00:40:56.010

The poem is especially prized because she utters no direct reproach to her lover who has not come. It's all suggested, let me read it again. A woman waiting for a long time for a lover who has not come to see her at an

00:40:56.010 - 00:41:13.990

appointed place, and this is a rich lady, a court lady. The jewelled steps are already quite white with dew. It is so late that the dew soaks my gauze stockings, and I let down the crystal curtain and watch the moon through the clear autumn.

00:41:16.990 - 00:41:34.900

Beautiful, beautiful poem. Beautiful poem. You want to hear that in direct translation? This is Wai-lim Yip's direct translation of this: Upon the jade steps, white dews grow. It is late, gauze

00:41:34.900 - 00:41:47.080

stockings are dabbled. She lets down the crystal blind to watch, glass-clear, the autumn moon. Sandy Lydon: That's very nice. I like that. Morton Marcus: The second one?

00:41:47.200 - 00:41:57.950

Sandy Lydon: Yeah. Morton Marcus: Pound messes around with it and I think that the jewel steps confuse maybe because you know you can say the dew is like jewels on the steps, but when you say jade steps,

00:41:57.980 - 00:42:12.440

there's no doubt that this is a palace. Wai-lim Yip, very interesting book he wrote on looking at the translations of Ezra Pound giving direct Chinese translations. He is a Chinese scholar who went to Harvard, one of those, speaks both languages

00:42:12.440 - 00:42:25.790

very clearly and he's very sharp. Okay, another one, Sandy, or you're- okay, you want me to go on since you're just about to take a drink out of a cup, which contains- Sandy Lydon: It's filled with straight caffeine.

00:42:27.200 - 00:42:37.640

Morton Marcus: Oh, you found something to drink here, that's amazing. We're getting off on all these people like Li Bao- Sandy Lydon: Well, you want to talk a little bit about poetry tradition, well, let me bring it across the water and tell those

00:42:37.640 - 00:42:48.470

story while you're- Morton Marcus: Okay, great. Sandy Lydon: There is a poem called, "The Thousand Character Poem," which all Chinese kids learned in school, and it was

00:42:48.470 - 00:43:05.390

the thing that they all memorized. And it's a standard introductory poem piece of literature that they all learned, and it has a thousand characters and no characters are repeated, so each character is different in this poem.

00:43:05.480 - 00:43:21.170

Morton Marcus: Right. Sandy Lydon: Back in about the sixth century, the Chinese Emperor thought that it would be a good idea to- he needed to raise some revenue, had a ittle funding shortfall and st

00:43:21.170 - 00:43:44.270

ged a lottery. And basically wh t the lottery was is they took t ose, that thousand character oem, and they took the first e ghty characters, each of whic was different, and took e ghty pigeons. To me, they sound like one of those Winters, Jon

00:43:44.270 - 00:43:56.540

than Winters stories with the guy with the pigeons and sc tch-taped them to his arms, bu it's not quite the same stor . And they took the pigeons awa from the city and then they urned the pigeons loose with these characters on, tied- ea

00:43:56.540 - 00:44:11.900

h one had a character tied to it leg. And the idea was that you et on which character would come, would be the first to c me to the city, which is the o igin, most of us believe, in th idea of a lottery. In Chinese it's called "the white pigeon

00:44:13.430 - 00:44:30.860

icket." Well, now, this poe then became the basis for th game Keno, which was pla ed by Chinese immigrants h re in California. And what th y did was, similarly, they woul - you would select numbers say f om one to eighty. And then

00:44:30.860 - 00:44:47.960

ou would win whether or not y ur numbers got pulled, and t is might sound familiar to th se out here who are playing the 49 game, the lotto game, beca se it's exactly the same. Well, he nice part about this was t at the poem was arranged from

00:44:47.960 - 00:44:59.570

op to bottom and right to left in Chinese style, and so that hen the Chinese laid the the ei hty characters out, the number one was in the upper right and corner, as opposed to our nu ber one which would be up in the upper left hand corner, if

00:44:59.570 - 00:45:16.340

you can visualize that. Instea of going from- they went to to bottom instead of from lef to right, top to bottom. Ri ht. Right, you went in co umns rather than in rows, ok y. Well, as things always wo ked out, the majority group th

00:45:16.340 - 00:45:32.390

t was already here, the ma ority community in Ca ifornia, began to pass laws ag inst the lottery, the ga bling, primarily because it wa mostly whites who were in lo ing their shirts, the odds in th game are terrible. And the Ch

00:45:32.390 - 00:45:48.170

nese, of course, had the ho se in the thing. Well, when th y got arrested, the Chinese we e looking for a way to avoid th problem of being arrested. An they took, which to me is on of the most brilliant ap roaches to this, and this is in

00:45:48.170 - 00:46:02.870

the 1890s turn of the ce tury, started, I believe, the fi st time they did it was in Fr sno. They, when they were br ught into court, they ch llenged the law and they said no that they weren't gambling at all, they were studying li

00:46:02.870 - 00:46:19.610

erature. And they brought a Ch nese scholar in to read the po m, which was these first ei hty characters and showed th m that it was Chinese li erature and they. Great poetry got them off, Mort. Like that?

00:46:19.500 - 00:46:33.990

Morton Marcus: It's wonderful. Well, that is a signal to me to Sandy Lydon: Not much! read. I don't know how much time we're going to have. Whoa, look at that clock!

00:46:31.770 - 00:46:48.240

Morton Marcus: A man who believes that poetry would change things and poetry should be used in times of trouble and that you can learn from it, really the first social poet in Chinese, a man by the name of Po Chu-i. And he was a Tang Dynasty

00:46:48.240 - 00:47:00.610

poet, he was the first popular poet, he was sort of like a Bob Dylan of his time and- Sandy Lydon: I'm sure he appreciates that. Morton Marcus: He probably doesn't because he took himself

00:47:00.610 - 00:47:11.650

so seriously, he literally edited all of his poems so they would never be lost and sent them to five different places because there was a time of turbulence in the Tang Dynasty, and this way, he was sure that they would survive and they all

00:47:11.650 - 00:47:20.680

have. Sandy Lydon: He was afraid that the manuscript would be stolen from his car. [Laughing] The mortal terror that we all live in, right? That somebody's going steal the manuscript from your

00:47:20.680 - 00:47:30.330

car. Morton Marcus: But he really did think, and a lot of his poems are very didactic, very moving, they're also very contemporary. He even said that during his lifetime, he could go from one

00:47:30.330 - 00:47:47.760

province to another, and people would be singing his poems, reciting his poems, they'd be appearing on walls, the girls of the red skirts, which I don't think needs any translation, would get extra money just for knowing his poems. And there are

00:47:47.760 - 00:48:03.270

many different kinds of poems. I like his humorous poems, in the end, his meditational poems, and let me read some to you right now. He believed that poetry could make a difference and that's why it should be saved. Here two poems by him, one is on

00:48:03.270 - 00:48:19.630

his baldness. And he says this, and these are again, my versions, my translations. Whether Joe believes that I'm doing this or not, folks, you'll find these in no books. At dawn, I'd grown to see my hair fall out. At dusk, I'd

00:48:19.630 - 00:48:39.370

grown to see my hair fall out. I dreaded when the last strand would go. Now, they're all gone and I don't mind at all. I'm through with awkward washing and drying. My grimy comb is laid aside forever. Best of all, when the weather is humid and hot, I

00:48:39.370 - 00:49:00.070

have no top-knot weighing down my skull. I lay my dusty cap aside and open my collar. I've stored a snow-cold stream in a silver jar and I pour a ladle full over my bald pate. As if baptized by the water of Buddha, I sit humbly beneath this chilly

00:49:00.070 - 00:49:15.100

cleansing. Now I know why the priest who seeks tranquility first frees his heart by shaving his head. Sandy Lydon: That's very nice. I like that. Not being bald, I don't not quite try.

00:49:15.370 - 00:49:27.930

Morton Marcus: I'm beginning to understand it more and more. Here is: MADLY SINGING IN THE MOUNTAINS Everyone has a weakness, mine is writing poetry. I've driven out

00:49:27.930 - 00:49:46.920

all desires, but this one still remains. Each time I see a landscape, each time I meet a friend, I trumpet out a verse as if a god had touched me. Exiled to Shun Yang, I spend my days in the hills. When I finish a new poem, I climb the road to East

00:49:46.920 - 00:50:04.860

Rock, lean on the shelves of white stone and pulling down Acacia branch, loose my mad singing. It stuns the hills and valleys. Apes and birds peek out at me. I don't want to be laughed at but what can I do? At least I chose a place away from

00:50:04.860 - 00:50:18.740

the world of men. Now he's known for, "The Song of the Guitar," a very long poem and a long narrative poem, which I thought we'd have time to hear in Chinese and I would read a little bit of, "Cold," the song

00:50:18.740 - 00:50:38.570

of unending sorrow, about a very, very romantic incident that happened during the Tang Dynasty when the Emperor fell in love with a woman who much neglected his role as Emperor, and actually his stepson, his adopted son, a Mongol, came and

00:50:38.990 - 00:50:50.510

took the capital over from him and [unidentified], as I remember the general's name. Sandy Lydon: I believe one of his crimes was to light the signal fires too often and not enough and not pay any

00:50:50.540 - 00:51:06.860

attention. He didn't man the wall is basically what they did. They didn't burn the wolf manure out on the wall, which wolf manure makes real dark smoke; it's something you need to know. Morton Marcus: That is one of those facts that will be made

00:51:06.860 - 00:51:22.650

into a poem. And I always knew that I in some way was related to the wolf. Okay- Sandy Lydon: Now, you know, were neglecting- and I'm saying it's only because we're mired back in the Tang Dynasty, which is quite

00:51:22.650 - 00:51:30.530

a nice place to be mired, right, but there's a long poetic tradition, I mean, the poetic tradition continues throughout Chinese history. Morton Marcus: Absolutely.

00:51:30.600 - 00:51:47.580

Sandy Lydon: And one of the greater 20th century poets was of course, Mao Zedong. And I always like to- if you want to get a little political, shall we get a little political? Morton Marcus: Sure, what the heck. This is KUSP.

00:51:47.600 - 00:52:01.010

Sandy Lydon: But he- it's really hard. Most of his biographers say that it's difficult to separate sometimes whether the moment that he wrote the poem, whether he really wrote it at the time he said he did or later, who really wrote it, and

00:52:01.010 - 00:52:17.570

I'm not- I don't really care. But there are several that are ascribed to him and one of them- and the rhythms, you begin to get a sense of the way these things set up and the way that the structure works, but this one is about the Long March,

00:52:19.610 - 00:52:33.920

which is, of course, one of those major seminal events in the history of modern China. This is: THE LONG MARCH by Mao Zedong, written in- apparently sometime afterwards, according to most of the commentators:

00:52:35.910 - 00:52:51.270

No one in the Red Army fears the hardships of the Long March. We looked lightly on the thousand peaks and the ten thousand rivers. The Five Mountains rose and fell like rippling waves. The Wu Meng Mountains were no more than small green pebbles,

00:52:52.020 - 00:53:09.570

warm with the sheer precipices when Gold Sand River dashed into them. Gold were the iron-chained bridges over the Tatu River. Delighting in the thousands snowy folds of the Min Mountains, the last pass vanquished, the Three Armies

00:53:09.600 - 00:53:18.000

smiled. Morton Marcus: I'm going to let you keep talking here as I change the record. Sandy Lydon: You're changing the record?

00:53:18.060 - 00:53:29.070

Morton Marcus: What is so int resting about Mao is how tha can be interspersed with Chi ese poetry virtually from any century. Sandy Lydon: That's right, that's right. And it's still not

00:53:29.070 - 00:53:50.130

that unusual to see his hand and some of his poems in public places in China, not as usual as it was five years ago but there are still a few things around that he did, they haven't expunged them all just yet. And then maybe just to sort of tie

00:53:50.130 - 00:54:03.510

off the end, there are a fair number of Chinese-American poets. We had a student, a student between us, a young man that went off to Sea Morton Marcus: Alan Lau.

00:54:03.540 - 00:54:13.980

Sandy Lydon: Yeah, Alan Chong Lau who- the book for- of his which I couldn't find so now I'm going to allude to him only because I thought it was [crosstalk] Morton Marcus: Jeez, you're making me feel bad.

00:54:14.250 - 00:54:23.910

Sandy Lydon: Oh, me too. Me too. Morton Marcus: Oh, why didn't I bring some of those poems of his, gosh. Sandy Lydon: Alan Chong Lau. What was the book? The song of-

00:54:24.520 - 00:54:28.930

Morton Marcus: What was the name of- Sandy Lydon: Jadina? Morton Marcus: Yeah, right. Sandy Lydon: "The Song of Jadina." He has got a lot of

00:54:28.960 - 00:54:38.860

very strong local poems. He did. He did a "New Brighton Beach" and some other things. Morton Marcus: But most of them are back in the Central Valley where his family owned a Chinese restaurant.

00:54:38.890 - 00:54:48.320

Sandy Lydon: Right. Morton Marcus: Yeah, wonderful poems. Sandy Lydon: Yeah, the other collection which I couldn't find- There's two that I didn't bring. This is called, "Poems We

00:54:48.320 - 00:54:54.480

Didn't Read." Morton Marcus: But we did not- we read not poems. Yeah, we ought to do this for the next year. And we will still not [cross talk] the subject.

00:54:54.420 - 00:55:11.970

Sandy Lydon: The other one is a collection that was put together by Judy Yung and Him Mark ai called- the title of the b ok is, "Island." And it's the translation of the poems off the walls at Angel Island in the detention building, showing

00:55:11.970 - 00:55:28.170

ery strikingly how the po tic tradition carried through, came with, you know- it sets al the mythology about Ch nese immigrants being peasant and having no education because in these terrible, terrible week and months that they sat in tha

00:55:28.170 - 00:55:39.690

barracks that poetry just poure out and they carved it Morton Marcus: One of the people, to just take a face out of the crowd you're talking about, one of the people who came over here with Sun Yat-sen himself. Yeah and he learned

00:55:39.690 - 00:55:58.080

from the high binders some of the art of terrorism and organization as well. And if you don't know who Sun Yat-sen is out there, he is the first President of the Republic of China. We are rapidly drawing to a close here. And I guess what I

00:55:58.080 - 00:56:07.470

am going to- gosh, there's just so much. Sandy, you're going to have to come back and we're going to have to do this at least several times during the year. We could do- Sandy Lydon: I guess we could do it at Ching Ming, see there's

00:56:07.470 - 00:56:13.450

other festivals out there. We don't have to wait for- Morton Marcus: Okay, great. Sandy Lydon: -the New Year's. Morton Marcus: We'll do it. I know the poem I want to end on

00:56:13.480 - 00:56:33.040

and it sort of ties it all up. Joe -- Wang Li-yi, I just never had a chance to do him- Yang Wan-li, I never had a chance to do any, you can do him. He's a great poet, a great Song poet also. We have done some Han Shan for you so don't grumble too

00:56:33.040 - 00:56:45.650

much out there. Sandy, why don't you read us a poem to go and then I will read one more. Sandy Lydon: This is a little shorty. This is by a young man named Russell Leong. Russell's dad grew up in Watsonville and

00:56:45.650 - 00:57:05.090

Russell is now one of the editors of the journal Amerasia, he's at UCLA. And it was written- I have no date on it. Russell was born in 1950. His father passed away last year and he was a writer for Asian Week newspaper and grew up and worked

00:57:05.090 - 00:57:16.480

in the apple dryers in Watsonville. This is his son Russell Leong and the title of the piece is: THREADS There is no way to show it, no way to even break it, or burn

00:57:16.480 - 00:57:34.000

it, or throw it away. It is with me and yet there is nothing I can say and nothing I can do that will make it work. It is with me, a fish swimming in silence, a fruit ripening on a tree, a bulging in the back of my mind, like a fat insect

00:57:34.630 - 00:57:51.060

caught on threads. Morton Marcus: Very, very nice indeed. This has been a Poetry Show in celebration of Chinese New Year's and you can see why they take two years to do it. I mean, we have just been- I think

00:57:51.060 - 00:58:02.670

we must have read around twenty poems maybe but I mean, we have not gone anywhere near what both of us wanted to do. I'm sure what Joe would have wanted to do with us, so maybe just the three of us will get back together and just really read some of this

00:58:02.670 - 00:58:22.140

amazing poetry. Again, next week, Joe will be here with a post-Valentine show. He will be reading Indian love poetry, exotic, erotic from the Sanskrit. I want to remind you that this program has been supported in part by a donation

00:58:22.140 - 00:58:41.160

from Plaza Books on Pacific Avenue. I want to tell you stay tuned for Tim Folger and "Things Ain't What They Used To Be" and I want to go out reading, "The Middle Autumn of the Year Ping Chen," by Su Dongpo. And it is the thought and the brotherhood

00:58:41.160 - 00:58:56.910

and the camaraderie that comes across these thousands of years of Chinese poetry, most of which, because of the strange verb situation in Chinese is always in the present tense. So these people are always talking to us at the moment they are

00:58:56.910 - 00:59:20.130

writing this poem. And here, from around the year 1071 is Su Dongpo: How long has the moon been in the firmament? Wine cup raised, I ask that of the blue sky. I do not know what year it is tonight

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inside the gates of heaven. I want to return there, riding the wind, but once more fear that Jasper towers and Jade mansions so high would be so cold. I rise, dance, play with my clear shadow. How can this resemble the world of men? Circling the

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vermilion chamber, lowering itself through the carved window, the moon shines upon the one who cannot sleep. I should have no complaints, but why is it always full when people are apart? People have sorrow and joy, being apart and together

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he moon has dimness and rightness, waxing and waning. hings have not been perfect ince time began. I only wish hat people could live for many ears, and across a thousand miles share this beauty.