tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-704910242207739723.post7201847091079055397..comments2024-03-29T02:00:23.842-07:00Comments on Immanyarok: Flight PreparationsCameron McPherson Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00719605067362038299noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-704910242207739723.post-60435851776090266752009-10-05T20:59:49.199-07:002009-10-05T20:59:49.199-07:00seagull:
Li Po (701-762) grew up in Szechwan and ...seagull:<br /><br />Li Po (701-762) grew up in Szechwan and unlike most T'ang poets never held a government position for long; much of his life was spent wandering or in exile. He was a colorful and romantic figure, exultantly celebrating life and wine, whose poems give vivid expression, Watson writes, to "a tireless search for individual spiritual freedom and communion with nature, a lively imagination and a deep sensitivity to the beauties of language." He was recognized immediately ... as a great poet, and legends quickly grew up around him, fostered no doubt by his own exuberant fantasies; thus he was said to have died by falling drunk, from a boat while trying to grasp the reflection of the moon. "The evanescence of the world tormented him, drove him to a frenzy," Robert Payne writes; "he would dam the water and make an everlasting flower of imperishable metal if he could, and yet he knew that the sheer beauty of the world lay in its evanescence." In <i>Conversation in the Mountains,</i> as translated in Payne's <i>The White Pony,</i> Li Po writes:<br /><br /><i>If you were to ask me why I dwell among green mountains,<br />I should laugh silently; my soul is serene.<br />The peach blossom follows the moving water;<br />There is another heaven and earth beyond the world of men.</i><br /><br /><br />-<a href="http://www.library.unh.edu/special/index.php/witter-bynner" rel="nofollow">Witter Bynner</a>, <i>Four Poems by Li Po</i><br />-from: <i>Encompassing Nature, Nature and Culture from Ancient Times to the Modern World,</i> by Robert TorranceAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com