Monday, September 5, 2016

Po Chü-i (772–846 AD) ... Renowned Chinese Tang Dynasty Poet

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Journal Éveillé is an informal exploration of awakened mind in the art of poetry....

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Bai Juyi (also Bo Juyi or Po Chü-iChinese白居易; 772–846) was a renowned Chinese poet and Tang dynastygovernment official. Many of his poems concern his career or observations made about everyday life, including as governor of three different provinces. Burton Watson says of Bai Juyi: "he worked to develop a style that was simple and easy to understand, and posterity has requited his efforts by making him one of the most well-loved and widely read of all Chinese poets, both in his native land and in the other countries of the East that participate in the appreciation of Chinese culture. He is also, thanks to the translations and biographical studies by Arthur Waley, one of the most accessible to English readers". Bai was also influential in the historical development of Japanese literature. 

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A serious student of Ch’an Buddhism, Po, like most Chinese Buddhists, also studied Taoism. The Taoist influence is evident in his poetry’s realistic quality and how it reflects the theme of harmony with nature and between people. However, the Ch’an influence was the greater of the two.

In his introduction to The Selected Poems of Po Chu-I, David Hinton writes, “Po’s poems often include the explicit use of Ch’an ideas, indeed he is the poet who really opened mainstream poetry to Buddhist experience, his work becoming a major source of information on Buddhist practice in his time.”

Burton Watson, translator of Chinese and Japanese literature, in his book Po Chu-i: Selected Poems, says that Po was most famous for his “simplicity of language” and for “an abiding desire to portray himself, whatever he may have been in real life, as a connoisseur of everyday delights, a man confronting the world, particular in the years of old age, with an air of humor and philosophical acceptance.”

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