Su Shi: loose translationsAbout this book
Su Shi, born in China in 1037 during the Song dynasty, was a major personality of the time—poet, essayist, calligrapher, painter, and scholar-official, with a profound cultural and philosophical influence. In pinyin, his name is Sū Shì. His courtesy name is Zizhan (子瞻). His literary pseudonym or art name is Dongpo (東坡)—after the name (meaning “Eastern Slope”) of the farm where he lived when he was banished from the capital.
Su Shi was born in Meishan, near Mount Emei in Sichuan province. His father Su Xun and his younger brother Su Zhe were both renowned scholars. He and his brother excelled in their examinations and attracted the attention of Emperor Renzong. The leading literary figure at the time, Ouang Xiu (歐陽修), became Su Shi’s patron.
He was sent into exile for writing a poem that criticized a government monopoly on the salt industry. He wrote many of his best poems during his exile.
About 2,700 poems and 800 letters of his have survived. Here we have a hundred of his poems in Chinese with literal translations and my loose translations in English.
Su Shi wrote many poems as lyrics to standard tunes. This is reflected in two-part titles. For example, in the title 《西江月·照野弥弥浅浪》 (“Xijiangyue · The shallow waves shining on the wild fields”), the first part is the title of a song by Tang Jiaofang, “White Apple Fragrance,” which has a fixed rhythm and rhyme scheme, and the second part is the first phrase of Su Shi’s poem.
The cover features a portrait of Su Shi and his name in Chinese characters. The photo of the author is by Liz Douthitt Sharp.
How this book is organized
The book has three pages for each poem and its translations. Language codes label the links in the header and footer. Zh is the language code for Chinese.
- En: My poem (in English)
- Zh+literal: The original Chinese poem, with a literal translation
- En+Zh: My poem, with the original Chinese poem
Links and shortcuts
In any page, you can click on or touch links to jump around in this book.
- Each entry in the contents links to the poem.
- The title for a poem links back to the contents, highlighting the entry for the poem.
- Words in the headers and footers link to the index, the contents, a listing of books by the author, to this page, and to the previous and next poems in the book.
You may find the following keyboard equivalents to be convenient. Here I use the symbol ⌥ for the option key on Mac/OS or the alt key on Windows, ⇧ for the shift key, and ⏎ for the return (enter) key. Arrow keys are ◄ (left), ► (right), ▲ (up), and ▼ (down).
| Context | Keys | Jump to / Behavior |
|---|---|---|
| cover | ⌥ ◄ | Books by Tom Sharp |
| ⌥ ▲ | About Tom Sharp | |
| ⌥ ► | about this book (this page) | |
| ⌥ ▼ | contents | |
| ⇧ ⌥ ▼ | contents | |
| contents | ⇧ ⌥ ▲ | cover |
| ⌥ ▼ | select the next item in the contents | |
| ⌥ ▲ | select the previous item in the contents | |
| ⌥ ► | open the selected page | |
| ⌥ ⏎ | open the selected page | |
| poem | ⇧ ⌥ ▲ | contents |
| ⌥ ◄ | contents | |
| ⌥ ▲ | open the previous page | |
| ⌥ ► | open the original + literal translation, translation + original, or translation in rotation | |
| ⌥ ▼ | open the next page |
The poet
Tom Sharp is a Native American of Aleut heritage, a member of Seldovia Village Tribe. He is the author of many books, including Spectacles: A Sampler of Poems and Prose, Taurean Horn Press (ISBN 0-931552-10-9), a novel, Hans and the Clock (ISBN 979-8580172484), The book of science, SciFi (ISBN 979-8694935210), Things People Do (ISBN 979-8687425568), The book of beliefs (ISBN 979-8683553593), The I Ching (ISBN 979-8573510620), Images (ISBN 979-8577560515), Aleut Artifacts (ISBN 979-8575608998), Aleut Words (ISBN 979-8582103394), First Nations (ISBN 979-8682924769), Shevchenko : Шевченко (ISBN 979-8286863815), Twilight: loose translations of Pablo Neruda (ISBN 979-8294301910), Poésies: loose translations of Arthur Rimbaud (ISBN 979-8294301910), Li Bai: loose translations (ISBN 969-8296321633), and Du Fu: loose translations (ISBN 969-8296414748).
You may email tom/AT/sharpgiving/DOT/-c-o-m-/ to share comments on this work.
