Wang’s poetry possesses the power to transport the reader to another time and place…

John Bradley, Rain Taxi

Wang An-shih

Wang An-shih (1021–1086) was a remarkable figure—not only one of the great Song Dynasty poets but also the most influential and controversial statesman of his time. Wang rose to the position of Prime Minister, where he instituted a controversial system of radically egalitarian social reforms in an effort to improve the lives of China’s peasants. Wang then left politics and retired to a reclusive artistic and spiritual life of self-cultivation.

Wang spent those later years practicing Ch’an (Zen) Buddhism and wandering the mountains around his home, and that Taoist civilization of the rivers-and-mountains realm shapes his poems. His writing has won him wide acclaim across the centuries in China and beyond.

cover image of the book The Late Poems of Wang An-Shih

The Late Poems of Wang An-Shih

by Wang An-shih

Translated by David Hinton

Wang An-shih (1021–1086) was a remarkable figure—not only one of the great Song Dynasty poets but also the most influential and controversial statesman of his time. Wang rose to the position of Prime Minister, where he instituted a controversial system of radically egalitarian social reforms in an effort to improve the lives of China’s peasants. Wang then left politics and retired to a reclusive artistic and spiritual life of self-cultivation.

Wang spent those later years practicing Ch’an (Zen) Buddhism and wandering the mountains around his home, and that Taoist civilization of the rivers-and-mountains realm shapes his poems. His writing has won him wide acclaim across the centuries in China and beyond. Here he enters English for the first time, where his deeply ecological approach is sure to resonate with fans of Gary Snyder, Mary Oliver, and Hayden Carruth.

Dawn lights up the room. I close my book and sleep, dreaming of Bell Mountain and full of tenderness.

How did you grow old living with failure and disgrace? Never leave that cascading creek: cold, shimmering.

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Wang’s poetry possesses the power to transport the reader to another time and place…

John Bradley, Rain Taxi
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