Returning Home: Poems of Tao Yuan-ming
AUTHOR
Tao Yuan-ming
TRANSLATOR
Dan Veach
Tao Yuan-ming, who lived around 400 A.D., stands first in the line of China’s great lyric poets. Later generations would look back to him as a beloved grandfather figure. Just as the Impressionists taught us to see in a new way, Tao taught the Chinese a lyrical attitude toward life. Creator of an intimate, honest, plain-spoken style, Tao was a man whose life spoke as eloquently as his art. Indeed, no poet’s life and art have ever been more of a piece.
Born into corrupt and turbulent times, Tao resigned his post as Magistrate, choosing to live the humble and difficult life of a farmer. He and his family would pay dearly for this choice, enduring hunger, cold and poverty. But he never wavered from it, holding steadfastly to the Confucian virtue of “firmness in adversity.” For a scholar to live this kind of reclusive life, giving up wealth and power, represented the highest moral virtue to the Chinese.
Reviews
"This book of beautifully rendered translations of Tao Yuan Ming's poetry is a gift to all poetry lovers. It provides a comprehensive view of the ancient sage's life, and includes all of his most beloved poems."
—Yun Wang, author of The Book of Mirrors
“The introduction is perfect, and the translations make me feel like I’m there. They’ve got me drinking rice wine again.”
—Red Pine translator of Dancing with the Dead: The Essential Red Pine Translations
Dan Veach is the founder and for two decades the editor of Atlanta Review. His collection of poems and Chinese ink paintings, Elephant Water, won the Georgia Author of the Year Award. Dan’s translations from Chinese, Arabic, Spanish, and Anglo-Saxon have won the Willis Barnstone Translation Prize and the Independent Publisher Book Award. He is the editor and co-translator of Flowers of Flame: Unheard Voices of Iraq (Michigan State University Press, 2008). A recipient of the Georgia Writers Lifetime Achievement Award, Dan has performed his poetry worldwide, including Oxford University, People’s University in Beijing, the American University in Cairo, the Atheneum in Madrid, and the Adelaide Festival in Australia. He also plays bass clarinet and composes for concert band and orchestra.
Tao Yuanming, also known as Tao Qian, courtesy name Yuanliang, was a Chinese poet and politician. He was one of the best-known poets who lived during the Six Dynasties period.