1 The Motive for Poetry
 

Erect in the Central Realm the poet views the expanse of the whole universe,
And in tomes of ancient wisdom his spirit rejoices and finds nurture.
His lament for fleeting life is in observance of the four seasons that ever revolve,
His regard for the myriad growing things inspires in him thoughts as profuse.
As with the fallen leaves in autumn's rigor his heart sinks in grief,
So is each tender twig in sweet spring a source of joy.
In frost he finds sympathy at moments when his heart is all frigid purity,
Or far, far, into the highest clouds he makes his mind's abode.
The shining, magnanimous deeds of the world's most virtuous are substance of his song,
As also the pure fragrance which the most accomplished goodness of the past yields.
The flowering forest of letters and treasuries of poetic gems are his spirit's favorite haunts,
Where he delights in nothing less than perfection of Beauty's form and matter.
Thus moved, he will spread his paper and poise his brush
To express what he can in writing.

 
2 Meditation Before Writing
 

                                                          In the beginning,
All external vision and sound are suspended,
Perpetual thought itself gropes in time and space;
Then, the spirit at full gallop reaches the eight limits of the cosmos,
And the mind, self-buoyant, will ever soar to new insurmountable heights.
                                                          When the search succeeds,
Feeling, at first but a glimmer, will gradually gather into full luminosity,
When all objects thus lit up glow as if each the other's light reflects.
Drip-drops are distilled afresh from a sea of words since time out of mind,
As quintessence that savors of all the aroma of the Six Arts.
Now one feels blithe as a swimmer calmly borne by celestial waters,
And then, as a diver into a secret world, lost in subterranean currents.
                                                           Hence,
Arduously sought expressions, hitherto evasive, hidden,
Will be like stray fishes out of the ocean bottom to emerge on the angler's hook;
And quick-winged metaphors, fleeting, far-fetched
Feathered tribes, while sky-faring are brought down from the curl-clouds by the fowler's bow.
Thus the poet will have mustered what for a hundred generations awaited his brush,
To be uttered in rimes for a thousand ages unheard.
Let the full-blown garden flowers of the ancients in their own morning glory stand;
To breathe life into late blossoms that have yet to bud will be his sole endeavor.
Eternity he sees in a twinkling,
And the whole world he views in one glance.

 
3 The Working Process
 
                                                              Then,
To obtain choice ideas in close observation of things in categories,
And elect expressions that will fall in happy order,
All objects visible under the sun or moon will the poet in experiment strike aglow,
All that can give out a sound he will ring to test their resonance.
He makes barren twigs put forth luxuriant foliage as they sway,
Or by endless waves he traces to the remote fountainhead.
He may either work from the obscure to the obvious,
Or, following an easy course, find the hardly obtainable.
Shapes of tame animals by the sudden shining forth of a tiger are illuminated,
Or amid the surf-tossed gulls the vision of a dragon emerges.
Sometimes with sure touches and smooth rhythm his ideas in utmost ease flow on,
At other moments, as if beset by mountainous obstacles, he is in a fret.
But not until the heart attains calm transparency does thought crystallize
Into such words as no man before fancied or pronounced.
Then, both heaven and earth find new embodiment in the shape desired,
And all things become plastic under the tip of his brush,
Which after all parching anxiety and hesitations
Is saturated and sweeps forth in a wave.
When the substance of a composition, trunk of a tree, is by truth sustained,
Style aids it to branch into leafy boughs and bear fruit.
Indeed, feeling and expression should never fail to correspond,
As each emotional change wears a new complexion on a sensitive face.
Thought that swells with joy bursts into laughter;
When grief is spoken, words reverberate with endless sighs,
No matter ff the work be accomplished in one flash on the page,
Or is the result of the most deliberate brush.

 4 The Joy of Writing
 
Writing is in itself a joy,
Yet saints and sages have long since held it in awe.
For it is being, created by tasking the great void;
And it is sound rung out of profound silence.
In a sheet of paper is contained the infinite,
And, evolved from an inch-sized heart, an endless panorama.
The words, as they expand, become all-evocative,
The thought, still further pursued, will run the deeper,
Till flowers in full blossom exhale all-pervading fragrance,
And tender boughs, their saps running, grow to a whole jungle of splendor.
Bright winds spread luminous wings, quick breezes soar from the earth,
And, nimbus-like amidst all these, rises the glory of the literary world.

 
5 On Form
 
The forms of things differ in a myriad ways,
For them there is no common measure.
Jumbled and jostled in a ceaseless flux,
Living shapes to all their imitations bid defiance.
Words, each with inherent limitations, do only partial service,
It is the all-harmonizing force of meaning that integrates and bodies forth features supreme.
How the poet's mind toils between substance and the void,
And every detail in high and low relief he seeks to perfect,
That the form, although it may transcend the dictates of compasses and ruler,
Shall be the paragon of resemblance to all shapes and features imitated.
To ravish the eye, rich ornaments may be prized,
But such precision must be wrought that it appeals to the heart as true.
Words may in time be exhausted, but not so that their sense is immured withal;
A far-reaching thought attains its object only in the realm of the infinite.
The lyric, born of pure emotion, is gossamer fiber woven into the finest fabric;
The exhibitory essay, being true to the objects, is vividness incarnate;
In monumental inscriptions rhetoric must be a foil to facts;
The elegy tenderly spins out ceaseless heartfelt grief.
The mnemonic is a smooth flow of genial phrases, succinct but pregnant;
The staccato cadences of the epigram are all transparent force.
While the eulogy enjoys the full abandon of grand style,
The expository must in exactitude and clarity excel.
The memorial, balanced and lucid, must be worthy of the dignity of its royal audience,
Rhetoric with glowing words and cunning parables persuades.
These classifications are meticulous,
Lest passion and thought, given free rein, may wantonly go astray.
The maxim: Let truth in terms most felicitous be spoken,
While of verbiage beware.

6 The Making of a Composition
 
A composition comes into being as the incarnation of many living gestures.
It is the embodiment of endless change.
To attain meaning, it depends on a grasp of the subtle,
While such words are employed as best serve beauty's sake.
The interactions of sounds and tones are like
The five colors that enhance each others:
Although they dwell and vanish by no common rule,
And their tortuous, intricate ways permit no liberty,
Yet if a poet masters the secret of change and order,
He will channel them like directing streams to obtain a fountain;
But once a false move leads to reckless floundering,
The end and the beginning are thrown into confusion,
Celestial blue and earthy yellow confounded,
Dull mud and dregs to chaos return, all light fails.

                                                        A composition is ruined
When a later passage swells to engulf its forerunners,
Or a downright statement encroaches on all that follows.
Apposite truth in words too ill expressed,
And pleasing phrases which utter senseless cant,
To redeem virtues of both, must be set apart
From the harmful company they keep.
For literary merits high and low are by grains and scruples measured,
The elect and the forsaken are separated no wider than a hairs breadth.
After the choice is made on the most accurate balance,
The master carpenter's tape it must also fit.
Lavish expressions may contain abundant truth,
But fail to direct and drive the meaning home.
For the highest perfection to be attained will exclude duality,
And consummation admits of no surfeit.
A pithy saying at a crucial point
May whip all parts into a whole.
Though all the words are in nice order arrayed,
Such a "rallying whip" is needed to make them serve.
The utmost is achieved at slightest cost,
When the kernel, unequivocal, suffices.
Sometimes inspired thoughts weave themselves into the finest fabrics,
And grow ever fresher and more comely as they expand,
Glistening with colors of the most exquisite embroidery,
And tuned to the poignant music of a thousand strings.
But the accomplished piece of imitation must be so perfected
That it is in the ancient tradition, yet remains a nonpareil.
Even though all the warp and woof are of my own heart's tissue,
In constant fear must I be lest others before me have spun the same.
When honor and integrity axe menaced,
Even gems most cherished must I sacrifice.
Or a thought may, like a lone plant, burst and burgeon with a life all its own,
So individual that on this earth it seems to have no species,
Until it becomes mirage-like, forever a fugitive from form,
Or a phantom voice that no sound audible can echo,
A being isolated from all contexts, a singular eminence,
That no common words or vocables can express.
The heart then feels like a forlorn lover, doomed to desolation,
Yet haunted by a meaning evasive, intangible, but never to be shaken off.
Let it, then, be contained like jade in rocks, that a mountain loom in radiance,
Or east it like a pearl in water that a whole river gleam with splendor.
For even shrubberies, when allowed to flourish,
Will by their opulent verdure claim a share of beauty.
In humble trines that may mingle with the most exalted strains,
I find resources, too, for any grandeur they may augment.

 7 Five Shortcomings
 
A verse limps and falls short
When it is a single train of thought by too indigent vision hampered.
It's then like one in bereavement around whom the world is mute,
The heaven above, out of reach, empty and vast:
A weak string plucked alone,
Without resonance, its sound into thin air vanishes.
Or a composition is so marred by languid tones
That its words may flash but never rise to glory.
Fair is confounded with foul,
And qualities are drowned in blemishes:
It's as if pipers down the hall pipe hurried notes at random,
Resonant but out of tune, that only throw the hymn into discord.
Or, to attain the unique at truth's expense,
The poet is so bent on a search for the illusory and the minuscular
That his words, lacking true emotion and void of love,
Will waft and drift, homeless, nowhere to return:
It’s like a zither, too high-strung and hard pressed by rapid fingers;
Although the melody is played in tune, it fails to move with pathos.

Or, a work may swing itself into such a symphony
That it rings and clangs with many bewitching colors.
It may thus please the eye and win popular acclaim,
While its lowly tunes are exalted by loud performance.
Beware of resemblance to the "The Foggy Dew" or "Mulberry Fair",
Which, though full of pathos, are an offense to grace.
Or, aerial purity and simple elegance are so cultivated
That the work is rid of all trimmings and ornaments,
A rarefied feast without relish of seasoned gravy.
A concert of wrought-silk strings that twang with too pure a tone,
Although it trills on with endless reverberations,
For all its grace, is innocent of glamour.
 
8 The Secret of Artistry
 
Luxuriance and terseness of style,
And the different aspects of form,
Vary according to laws of propriety,
Whose intricacies hinge upon a feeling so subtle:
Once grasped, uncouth language may divulge clever parables,
A truism by light verbal touches is turned into epigram,
The older the model, the fresher the imitation,
The duller the beginning, the more brilliant the final illumination.
Whether this superb artistry becomes apparent at first sight
Or is comprehended only after arduous toils of wit,
It is like the dancer's, whose each whirl of the sleeve is borne by a rhythm,
Or the singer's, whose each note responds to the twang of the string,
Guided by a force which even the master wheelwright Pien could not express in words;
Therefore its secret lies beyond smoothest speech.

 9 The Source of Literature and Discipline
 
To the all-pervasive law of word order and literary discipline
I have devoutly dedicated myself.
In its light I have seen much of the ills in vogue today
And perceived the merits of masters of the past,
Although an art truly wrought from the depths of a master mind
Is oft by untrained eyes with ridicule regarded.
Coral gems and jade filigree, however, are in their origins none too rare,
But common as wild beans of the Central Plain that all can gather:
Thus the source of poetry is like the air from the bellows of the eternally generative void,
And it will forever breed with heaven and earth.
But be it soever bounteous and ubiquitous in this world,
Alas, how much of it can my fingers mould?
Dismayed as the holder of a vessel that is too often empty,
I feel harassed by the thought that Great Eloquence is hard to achieve.
Hence limping verses, born dwarfed, are let live,
And perfunctory notes are fiddled to round out a vapid tune.
Often have I finished my work with pangs of remorse;
When has my heart rejoiced with self-content?
Always fearful am I lest mine were the earthenware, dust-muffled and jarring,
A coarse mockery of tinkling jade.

 10 Of Inspiration
 
Such moments when mind and matter hold perfect communion,
And wide vistas open to regions hitherto entirely barred,
Will come with irresistible force,
And go, their departure none can hinder.
Hiding, they vanish like a flash of light;
Manifest, they are like sounds arising in mid-air.
So acute is the mind in such instants of divine comprehension,
What chaos is there that it cannot marshal in miraculous order?
While winged thoughts, like quick breezes, soar from depths of the heart,
Eloquent words, like a gushing spring, flow between lips and teeth.
No flower, or plant, or animal is too prodigal of splendor
To be recreated under the writer's brush,
Hence the most wondrous spectacle that ever whelmed the eye,
And notes of the loftiest music that rejoiced the ear.
But there are other moments as though the six senses were stranded,
When the heart seems lost, and the spirit stagnant.
One stays motionless like a petrified log,
Dried up like an exhausted river bed.
The soul is indrawn to search the hidden labyrinth;
Within oneself is sought where inner light may be stored.
Behind a trembling veil truth seems to shimmer, yet ever more evasive,
And thought twists and twirls like silk spun on a clogged wheel.
Therefore, all one's vital force may be dispersed in rueful failure;
Yet again, a free play of impulses may achieve a feat without pitfall.
While the secret may be held within oneself,
It is none the less beyond one's power to sway.
Often I lay my hand on my empty chest,
Despairing to know how the barrier could be removed.

 11 The Service of Literature
 
The service of literature
Lies in its conveyance of every truth.
It expands the horizon to make space infinite,
And serves as a bridge that spans a myriad years.
It maps all roads and paths for posterity,
And mirrors the images of worthy ancients,
That the tottering edifices of the sage kings of antiquity may be reared again,
And their admonishing voices, wind-borne since past times, may resume full expression.
No regions are too remote but it pervades,
No truth too subtle to be woven into its vast web.
Like mist and rain, it permeates and nourishes,
And manifests all the powers of transformation in which gods and spirits share.
Virtue it makes endure and radiate on brass and stone,
And resound in an eternal stream of melodies ever renewed on
pipes and strings.

     More than 2800 Po Chu-i poems have survived. This poem might be mistaken for a Chuang Tzu inspired poem celebrating the rejection of active
     engagement in the world, but the ironic tone that emerges at the end of the poem, when the lazy chap places himself above an ancient poet and
     musician, it becomes clear that the poet is mocking the lazy man from the perspective of a Confucian artist who favors dedication and work and active
     participation in the world. What kind of man would not bother to open letters--long letters--from family and friends? Also from his other poems,
     especially his "Last Poem" in which we see an old man poet, the autobiographer poet, in his death-bed, very busy, doing what else, answering his
     mail, responding to his poet friends, we can see that he is actively engaged in the world even in his last moment. For us, it should be a clue that Po
     Chu-i belongs completely in the tradition of Tu Fu, not Li Po.

     Lazy Man's Song
     (C.E. 811)

     I could have a job, but am too lazy to choose it;
     I have got land, but am too lazy to farm it.
     My house leaks; I am too lazy to mend it.
     My clothes are torn; I am too lazy to darn them.
     I have got wine, but I am too lazy to drink;
     So it?s jus the same as if my cup were empty.
     I have got a lute, but I am too lazy to play;
     So it?s just the same as if it had no strings.
     My family tells me there is no more steamed rice;
     I want to cook, but am too lazy to grind.
     My friends and relatives write me long letters;
     I should like to read them, but they?re such a bother to open.
     I have always been told that His Shu-yeh
     Passed his whole life in absolute idleness.
     But he played his lute and sometimes worked at his forge;
     So even he was not so lazy as I.