Lampoetry: Our New Mission Statement

I've been contemplating a redesign and relaunch of some of my various web publishing projects.  The basic idea is to roll together a few separate efforts into a more unified presentation or platform.  My goal in doing so is to find a way to better integrate my own poetry (which I typically publish on this blog) with my translations of Chinese poetry (which I typically publish on the Tang Spirit site).

I've already started moving in this direction by posting my translations on this blog with increasing frequency.  I'm encouraged by the initial response.  But I would like this effort to be more comprehensive and less haphazard.  At least as far as I'm concerned there is considerable thematic (and sometimes stylistic) overlap between my translations and my own writing, and I hope readers who are interested in the one may likewise be interested in the other.  At least that's the theory of the case and the logic underlying the web designer's creative brief. 

Here's a poem I wrote last night that may serve as something of a mission statement for the redesign effort I hope will soon commence: 

Lampoetry: Our New Mission Statement

Admittedly there’s a vast range

Along the spectrum of idiocy

From sublime to ridiculous

When it comes to social media

Literacy (and au contraire)

And along that spectrum

I inhabit my own singular frequency

Right here, right smack

In the middle of the dial only

A stone's throw from the Omphalos
At Lampoetry.com

That being the least worst place

I have found thus far

Where I can best express myself

Yet remain in full possession of my audience

A hack sometimes, a neo-realist Daoist theorist

At others, as it were, a self-publisher extraordinaire

In the grand tradition of Tang poetry 

And crackpot American verse

Happily exploiting the overlapping terrain

Between copyright and birthright

That being the only ground

I have yet found fertile enough

For continued ploughing and sowing

And ultimately the ground

Of most enduring worth

*  *  *  *

Reaching for the Extremity - by the Daoist poet Yuan Jie (元结)

After a busy week at work, this afternoon I finally had a chance to resume my practice of translating Tang poetry.  I found this little gem of a poem by the Daoist poet Yuan Jie (元结).  I don't know too much about him or his work but the few poems of his I've read so far are infused with the spirit of the Way.  This one almost reads like a gloss on the Chuang Tzu or Dao De Jing and it is full of some wonderful phrases (very difficult to translate), such as the fifth stanza - 假翼兮鸾凤 - which I have rendered as the falsity surrounding the target's center of the virtuous heart.

Reaching for the Extremity

(a poem in contemplation of the origin by the Daoist poet Yuan Jie)

Under Heaven

 A forgotten place

Overrun with weeds

Desolate and vast

But the energy

Is utterly boundless

Although ashen gray

It's always flourishing

Ascending there

What a person finds

Is truly unexpected

A storehouse of

Clarity and solitude

Upon attaining that

Prime and utmost spot

At this primal extremity

The spirit quickens

And distinguishes itself

Just consider

Its singular appearance

Meager and troubling

And barely defined

Yet also consider

From this Vacuity

No harm to the Self

Will come

Even if the heart

Grows agitated

And fear rings out

Remember that

Falsity surrounds

The target's center 

Of the virtuous heart

It’s a long journey

Riding the wind and

Soaring above

Clasp your hands and

Retain vital energy

Hold on to the source

In its richness and depth

Feast there until

You attain full harmony

Which will last forever

And all day

 *  *  *  *

引极三首·思元极

元结

天旷莽兮杳泱茫    气浩浩兮色苍苍
上何有兮人不测    积清寥兮成元极
彼元极兮灵且异    思一见兮藐难致
思不从兮空自伤    心慅兮意惶懹
思假翼兮鸾凤      乘长风兮上羾
揖元气兮本深实    餐至和兮永终日

*  *  *  *

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