"He also said in The Knapsack Notebook, "Saigyo's waka, Sogi's renga, /
Sesshu's sumi, Rikyu's tea—the spirit which moves them is one spirit." But he was
not filled with confidence, either, noting that all his attempts to reinvigorate the
travelogue and to "become the equal" of Japan's greatest poets may amount to
no more than "mere drunken chatter, the incoherent babbling of a dreamer."
Nevertheless, he felt driven to take these ri ..."
""Revisiting these 100 classic case studies, Rothenberg enlivens the process, and if he returns one to translations from the original, if his practice deepens another's practice, so much the better." -from the foreword by Sam Hamill, editor and translator of the Essential Chuang Tzu "It is astonishing how thousand year old riddles are brought here to evocative poetic life. David Rothenberg converts them into contemporary verbal music, an ..."
"Estonia's Jaan Kaplinski is one of Europe's major poets, and one of his country's best-known writers and cultural figures. He was a member of the new post-Revolution Estonian parliament in 1992-95 and his essays on cultural transition and the challenges of globalisation are published across the Baltic region. This selection includes work previously unpublished in English as well as poems drawn from all four of his previous UK/US collect ..."