Green Tara
AUTHOR
Luo Ying
TRANSLATOR
Denis Mair
Green Tara simultaneously celebrate the human spirit and the natural world, just as they critique our impact on the very landscapes within which we dwell.
These poems are like mountain passes, navigable routes through the mountain range of different languages, cultures, classes, and ecological experiences. Our planet’s most magnificent mountain ranges have long presented humans with forbidding barriers to travel, trade, and communication, and as such have become deeply lodged into our species psyche. While summiting peaks may provide fleeting moments of nearly omniscient perspective, poetry can serve as lasting passes through which we may cross for generations to come.
In poems that harkens back to the observations in classical Chinese poetry, Ying focuses on small and often unobserved aspects of the natural world. His words paint delicate pictures of a world, and a psyche, that remained intact—though not untouched—through turmoil and chaos.
Reviews
"This book presents a plethora of meditative scenes and wistful reflections. Flora and fauna real or metaphorical. Delight and sadness visceral or dreamlike. The poet is a disciple of ancient Chinese nature poets. Yet, he is also the epitome of the modern age: "I would rather my heart be racked by pain than be someone of no consequence." This book takes us on an imaginative adventure of the mind, gifting us with unexpected insights and mesmerizing beauty.”
—Yun Wang, author of The Book of Mirrors
"This book takes us on an imaginative adventure of the mind, gifting us with unexpected insights and mesmerizing beauty. It presents a plethora of meditative scenes and wistful reflections. Flora and fauna real or metaphorical. Delight and sadness visceral or dreamlike. The poet is a disciple of ancient Chinese nature poets. Yet, he is also the epitome of the modern age: "I would rather my heart be racked by pain than be someone of no consequence.""
— Jonathan Stallings
Luo Ying is the pen name of Huang Nubo. Born in 1956 in Ningxia Province, China, he has published eleven collections of poetry and fiction. His work has been translated into English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Turkish, Mongolian, Spanish and Icelandic. He is also an intrepid mountaineer and a key member of the Explorers Club in New York City. A successful Chinese real estate developer and entrepreneur, he is also founder of the Zhongkun Poetry Development Fund, the Sino-Japanese Poetry Fund, and the Sino-Icelandic Poetry Fund. He serves as Vice-President of the China Poetry Association and Standing Deputy-Dean of the China Poetry Institute at Peking University, where he started the first Poet-in-Residence program. Luo Ying has initiated many international poetry festivals and has established exchanges among Chinese and South American poets. He also established the Zhongkun International Poetry Prize, sponsored China Poetry Institute at Peking University. Currently engaged in a ten-year plan to visit all the world’s cultural heritage sites, Luo Ying strives to protect the environment and its creatures. He is a board member of WildAid International and chairman of WildAid China. Luo Ying’s website is www.luoying.me.