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    The Moon Pool
    The Moon Pool
    The Moon Pool
    Ebook134 pages1 hour

    The Moon Pool

    By Alexander Goldstein

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    About this ebook

    These collected poems has been inspired by the works that the Tang-period poet Li Bai (701-762 CE) left after him as a great cultural heritage, and of whom I will have more to say on the pages below. It was with him that this book began; without him, none of what follows after the short essay would have been written.
    Fortunately or not, but I am not alone in this regard, as there are so many famously known creative figures in the West who have also been inspired by the poetry of Li Bai who lived and created on the other side of the world around twelve hundred years ago, but whose influence in some inexplicable way continued to grow in China and abroad.
    The following three poems of Li Bai translated and represented herein as preface to my collection of verses are unfolded around the common subject of the Chinese literature -- the moon and its imagery. Together with the reader, we are going to unveil some unnoticed (if not to say 'misunderstood' or even 'wrong interpreted') moments of the poet's legendary life.
    It sounds obvious but, again, we learn more about the world literature by studying the evolution of poetry through the centuries; as a result, we find out more of the world's history, evoke our interest and understanding of the ancient writers and of humanity in general.
    Poetry analysis and its translation from the language like archaic Chinese, which is the foreign language for the contemporary Chinese as well, is not scientifically exact, it is somewhat subjective to how it affects the translator's academic knowledge and daily experience. Yet, I find it very difficult to put a lot of credit on those representatives of the Old School (most of them are the famously known scholars of academic elite) who do not try to dig deeper about the poets of antiquity, and to reveal their motivations and find out those who affected them.
    Everything Li Bai did was tuned to the passage of time and the joys of Nature with brilliance and great freshness of imagination. The subjects that he studied in his poetry were swordplay, friendship and solitude constructed around the everlasting image of the moon's disc reflected in the pool with its multiple tints and mythological riddles. His imagination and humorous characteristics of a freethinker are apparent in his poetry in full to be a powerful incentive for many others throughout the ages, and your humble author is not the exception.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAlexander Goldstein
    Release dateOct 30, 2016
    ISBN9781370820184
    The Moon Pool
    Author

    Alexander Goldstein

    Alexander Goldstein, a graduate of the Far-Eastern University in Sinology, lived and worked in mainland China for a period as a translator/interpreter, a manager, and a martial arts' practitioner. A certified instructor of ‘Chang-quan’ (external-style boxing) and ‘Taiji-quan’ (internal-style boxing), he is a lecturer of Chinese culture and traditions at the Open University in Tel-Aviv. He also is the author of Lao-zi's "Dao-De Jing," Chan (Zen) masters' paradoxes, "The Illustrated Canon of Chen Family Taiji-quan," a Chinese novel and some other editions, which are available in print and electronic publishing at most online retailers published in English, Spanish and Russian. What makes his books so appealing is profound analysis and authority with which various strains of the vigorous Chinese culture are woven into a clear and useful piece of guidance for a business person who conducts the affairs with far-eastern counterparties and for a counsellor who develops strategies that enable leaders to position their organisations effectively.

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      Book preview

      The Moon Pool - Alexander Goldstein

      Get this awesome gift for free when you sign up for my VIP mailing list!

      http://stone108108.wixsite.com/zen96

      The Moon Pool

      by Alexander Goldstein

      Copyright 2016 Alexander Goldstein

      All rights reserved

      License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with other persons, please refer them to the link you have used for picking it up. No part of this publication may be reproduced, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or otherwise, without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. Thank you for respecting the creative work of this author.

      * * * * * *

      Contents

      Author's Note

      The Tang-period Poet Li Bai's Legacy

      The Moon Pool Selected Verses:

      Stillness of Water

      The Worldly Wholeness

      Tea Drinking Impact

      My Rose Garden

      Its Majesty Time

      My Last Memory

      The Core of Serenity

      My Old Boat

      A Poet's Way

      The Unnamed Verse

      Still Perplexed

      No Kidding

      Heap Over

      As Something Else

      At the Crime Scene

      Contemplating the Milky Way

      A Yokel

      Never-Sleeping Buddha

      Uninhibited

      No Bitter Remorse

      Unanswered Questions

      To Freedom!

      Platonic Love

      An Agreement

      This

      Apart

      The Strata

      The Pivot

      Retirement

      Serenity

      Refinement

      Still in Retreat

      On the Werewolf Mountain

      The World's Disorder

      WWW or the Way to Win the World

      Cultivation of Life

      Equality

      A Weekly Cycle

      Relativity

      On High

      Daybreak of Parting

      A Fair Lady of My Dreams

      Two Banks of One Stream

      On the Eve of Mid-Autumn Feast

      Reminiscences

      The Charm of Early Autumn

      I'd Want

      A Song of Release

      The Lamp

      At Home

      My Mind

      In the Middle

      Wild Nature

      Above the World

      The Moon's Nature

      The Crane Song

      Happiness

      Man's True Nature

      The Lunar Hub

      The Moonlit Mind

      Rock-Steady in the End

      About the Author

      Endnote

      ". . .This or that way but we always

      Learn from them, the poets of old--

      They are infinitely precious for us;

      And young men are absolutely right

      Of being interested in their wisdom,

      Which is neither dry nor out-of-date." --Alex Stone

      Author's Note

      These collected poems have been inspired by the works that the Tang-period poet Li Bai (701-762 CE) left after him as a great cultural heritage, and of whom I will have more to say on the pages below. It was with him that this book began; without him, none of what follows after this essay would have been written.

      Fortunately or not, but I am not alone in this regard, as there are so many famously known creative figures in the West who have also been inspired by the poetic works of Li Bai who lived and created on the other side of the world around twelve hundred years ago, but whose influence in some inexplicable way continued to grow in China and abroad.

      The Tang-period Poet Li Bai's Legacy

      (a short essay in place of preface)

      唐李太白之遗物

      Li Bai is so influential in the West partly due to Ezra Pound's versions of some of his poems in the collection entitled Cathay, the name by which China was known to medieval Europe (Pound transliterated his name according to Rihaku in Japanese, which is Li Bai in Chinese). Li Bai's life in the flourishing period of the so-called 'Golden Age' in China's history and his interactions with nature and friendship, his love of wine and his acute observations of the old society enriched his best poems. Some of them, like The River Merchant's Wife: A Letter, as Ezra Pound entitled it from a word-for-word translation largely based on the work of Ernest Fenollosa (1853–1908), which recorded the hardships and emotions of common people, were the striking examples of the liberal but poetically influential adaptations of Japanese versions of Li Bai's poetry expressed through the talent of American poet in the 20th century.

      There is another musical setting of Li Bai's verse by composer Harry Partch, whose Seventeen Lyrics by Li Bai for intoning voice and adapted viola (an instrument of Partch's invention) are based on the texts in The Works of Li Bai translated by Shigeyoshi Obata. In Brazil, the songwriter Beto Furquim included a musical setting of the poem named A Quiet Night Thoughts (see my retranslation below) in his album Muito Prazer.

      In 2013, Gareth Bonello (aka the Gentle Good, which is one of the Buddha Gautama's name) released a Welsh-Chinese folk album The Immortal Bard, whose lyrics were inspired by and based on Li Bai's biography. The album was partly recorded in Chengdu, Sichuan, with local musicians.

      Australian composer Stephen Whittington's second string quartet work composed From a Thatched Hut is based on Li Bai's poetry (a detailed study of it, including history and analysis, has been made by the composer himself).

      The ideas underlying Li Bai's poetry has a profound impact in shaping American Imagist and Modernist poetry throughout the 20th century. Also, Gustav Mahler integrated four of Li Bai's works into his symphonic song cycle Das Lied von der Erde. These were derived from a free German translation by Hans Bethge published in Anthology named Die chinesische Flöte (Chinese Flute). Hans Bethge based his version on the pioneering translation into French by Saint-Denys.

      It would be enough to name Derek Walcott, Charles Bukowski, Charles Wright, James Wright, Hermann Hesse, John Steinbeck, Simon Elegant, Guy Gavriel Kay, MacDonald Harris, Philip Jose Farmer, Ursula K. Le Guin, Philip K. Dick, Annie Dillard and many other authors whose works this or that way refer to the Chinese poet, his irrepressible lifestyle and transcendent creativity. As I know, a number of poetic works of Mao Ze-dong were written under the living influence of Li Bai's poetry; even a

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