One San Francisco poet, writing in the early 20th century, wrote something that no other poet ever said in the history of Chinese literature (probably): having money is more important than having sons! This is a huge statement that runs against much of traditional Chinese thinking. But, this anonymous poet, though writing in a mixture […]
This week and next week, in honor of Asian American History month, we are interrupting our weird poetry series to shoehorn in two poems by Chinese-speaking poets. This week, we look at a poem by an unnamed poet who was jailed by immigration officers in San Francisco on Angel Island and writes of his mistreatment. […]
The beginning of our weird poetry series, today we look at a crazy poem written by a Qing official to celebrate Empress Dowager Cixi’s 60th Birthday. What makes it strange: it is written in English, in the Scottish dialect, and it celebrates a leader of the Boxer Rebels who attacked foreigners and those Chinese people […]
Last week, we did Zhang Jie’s Song Dynasty poem, the “Water Dragon Chant.” This week, we look Su Dongpo’s response to that poem, his own poem with the exact same title, “Water Dragon Chant.” We explore why Su Dongpo’s poem is so much better. Here is Lee’s translation: It seems like the poplar flower is […]