Hi, writing coach and editor here, who is also conversant in Mandarin and studied Chinese culture at university (and in person while living in Taiwan and on a sadly-brief visit to the mainland) :
"None of the poems are any good" **in English.**
The examples you give here actually sound like decent Chinese poetry. It is meant to evoke both a specific moment experienced through the senses, and an emotion connected to that moment— this isn't meant to be narrative poetry, and any rhyme or rhythm or clever word choice that might create interesting ambiguity or double-entendres would of course be lost in translation.
So I really can't say whether any of these Chinese poems are good without hearing them spoken in Mandarin, or at least seeing the characters (I probably wouldn't be able to read them all anyway without help from Google Translate). They might indeed sound like flat, wooden attempts at real Chinese poetry.
But they might also be quite powerful, in their own cultural and linguistic context.
I have no comment about the personal hygiene or sexual proclivities, except to say that they undoubtedly changed over the course of his life; like the poems themselves, the description you quote is a momentary snapshot (whether or not it's a true one, in any sense of the word, I have no idea).
It is always better to read poetry in the original language, whenever possible, and I'm not fluent in Mandarin but I know enough from having lived several years in China to look at the original and get a sense of the flavor of the poem and to understand some of what's been lost in translation. So I completely agree with you there. I have also have studied the poetic traditions of several Asian countries and done some poetry translation of my own, mostly from Japanese and Korean masters, so I don't approach Mao or any other Asian poet expecting the kind of expression you would find in English or French poetry. Again, you're completely right about that.
The evocation of a moment through sense, as you say, is an important thing to understand. That said, Mao is generally considered to be a fairly poor poet. He was an avid reader, however, and you can tell his poetry attempts to imitate the greats such as Li Bai or Li Shangyin. But he falls dramatically short. Plus, as with most great poets, there is a quality that does translate. For instance, lines from Li Shangyin were used in the Pink Floyd song "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun" on the album "A Saucerful of Secrets" and they are beautiful lines in English or any other language.
You lose the nuance, of course, but I would argue that with truly great poetry the heart of its beauty is translatable. To give another example, Li Shangyin has a poem where he talks about flower petals swirling around in his garden and down the path as if they are ceremonial dancers escorting the sun beyond the horizon. You can rephrase that or translate it into German or Swahili but it's a beautiful concept however you put it down.
Mao's poetry doesn't have this quality. Nor is it very creative. He reuses the same imagery, as you can see above, imitates the greats without capturing what made them great, and has nothing deeper to say that actually would transcend the language barrier. I've noticed a similar thing reading through his prose. He simply did not posses an impressive artistic or philosophic mind. Perhaps I'm being too harsh, but I'm not slamming the guy simply because he was a monster. I enjoy the art of many artists who were despicable human beings. But I won't lie, discovering that Mao was a lame-ass poet does put a smirk on my face.
Hi, writing coach and editor here, who is also conversant in Mandarin and studied Chinese culture at university (and in person while living in Taiwan and on a sadly-brief visit to the mainland) :
"None of the poems are any good" **in English.**
The examples you give here actually sound like decent Chinese poetry. It is meant to evoke both a specific moment experienced through the senses, and an emotion connected to that moment— this isn't meant to be narrative poetry, and any rhyme or rhythm or clever word choice that might create interesting ambiguity or double-entendres would of course be lost in translation.
So I really can't say whether any of these Chinese poems are good without hearing them spoken in Mandarin, or at least seeing the characters (I probably wouldn't be able to read them all anyway without help from Google Translate). They might indeed sound like flat, wooden attempts at real Chinese poetry.
But they might also be quite powerful, in their own cultural and linguistic context.
I have no comment about the personal hygiene or sexual proclivities, except to say that they undoubtedly changed over the course of his life; like the poems themselves, the description you quote is a momentary snapshot (whether or not it's a true one, in any sense of the word, I have no idea).
It is always better to read poetry in the original language, whenever possible, and I'm not fluent in Mandarin but I know enough from having lived several years in China to look at the original and get a sense of the flavor of the poem and to understand some of what's been lost in translation. So I completely agree with you there. I have also have studied the poetic traditions of several Asian countries and done some poetry translation of my own, mostly from Japanese and Korean masters, so I don't approach Mao or any other Asian poet expecting the kind of expression you would find in English or French poetry. Again, you're completely right about that.
The evocation of a moment through sense, as you say, is an important thing to understand. That said, Mao is generally considered to be a fairly poor poet. He was an avid reader, however, and you can tell his poetry attempts to imitate the greats such as Li Bai or Li Shangyin. But he falls dramatically short. Plus, as with most great poets, there is a quality that does translate. For instance, lines from Li Shangyin were used in the Pink Floyd song "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun" on the album "A Saucerful of Secrets" and they are beautiful lines in English or any other language.
You lose the nuance, of course, but I would argue that with truly great poetry the heart of its beauty is translatable. To give another example, Li Shangyin has a poem where he talks about flower petals swirling around in his garden and down the path as if they are ceremonial dancers escorting the sun beyond the horizon. You can rephrase that or translate it into German or Swahili but it's a beautiful concept however you put it down.
Mao's poetry doesn't have this quality. Nor is it very creative. He reuses the same imagery, as you can see above, imitates the greats without capturing what made them great, and has nothing deeper to say that actually would transcend the language barrier. I've noticed a similar thing reading through his prose. He simply did not posses an impressive artistic or philosophic mind. Perhaps I'm being too harsh, but I'm not slamming the guy simply because he was a monster. I enjoy the art of many artists who were despicable human beings. But I won't lie, discovering that Mao was a lame-ass poet does put a smirk on my face.
Touché...