Mao Zedong

The Poems of Mao Zedong

Translations, Introduction, and Notes by Willis Barnstone

$24.95, £14.95 hardcover

978-0-520-25665-1

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168 pages, 6 x 8 inches, 46 line illustrations
June 2008, Available worldwide
Categories: Literary Studies; China; Poetry; Literature in Translation

Description | Short Excerpt | Table of Contents | About the Author

"In his introduction to The Poems of Mao Zedong, translator Willis Barnstone strikes just the right approach to the poet. Difficult as it may be in reading these works, we must not be blinded by Mao's role in history, nor by his worshippers or detractors, nor by ideological considerations. . . . There is no question of Mao as a poet of sensibility and power."—Robert Kirsch, Los Angeles Times

"Mao [is] a poet of originality and masterful strength."—Richard Lattimore, New York Times

"Classical poems by the hand of a master. . . . Barnstone's renderings are simply into graceful irregular verse."—Richard Lattimore, Hudson Review

"It is tempting to view the publishing of this selection from Mao Zedong's poems as an event in international politics rather than literature, but that wouldn't do. . . . [The poems] give us glimpses into the character of the man who [led] one quarter of all humanity; and certainly they are political documents in themselves. Nevertheless, it is as literature that they should be considered. . . . 'Prior to the republic in China,' Willis Barnstone points out, 'it had been obligatory for all civil servants to demonstrate, by examination, their ability to produce a poem.'"—J.D. O'Hara, Washington Post

Mao Zedong, leader of the revolution and absolute chairman of the People's Republic of China, was also a calligrapher and a poet of extraordinary grace and eloquent simplicity. The poems in this beautiful edition (from the 1963 Beijing edition), translated and introduced by Willis Barnstone, are expressions of decades of struggle, the painful loss of his first wife, his hope for a new China, and his ultimate victory over the Nationalist forces. Willis Barnstone's introduction, his short biography of Mao and brief history of the revolution, and his notes on Chinese versification all combine to enrich the Western reader's understanding of Mao's poetry.

HUICHANG
Dawn wakes in the east.
Don't say we are marching early.
Though we stomp over all these green hills we are not yet old,
and from here the land is a wonder.
Beyond the walls of bright Huichang the peaks
tumble all the way to the ocean in the east.
Our soldiers point and look eagerly south to Guangdong,
onion green and sensual in the distance.—Summer 1934

Acknowledgments

PART I: INTRODUCTION
Mao's Life and the Revolution
About the Poems
Notes on the Introduction

PART II: THE POEMS
Changsha
Tower of the Yellow Crane
Chingkang Mountain
Warlords
Ninth Day of the Ninth Moon
New Year's Day
On the Road to Chian
Tingchow to Changsha
First Siege
Second Siege
Region of the Great Pines
Huichang
Loushan Pass
Three Songs
The Long March
Kunlun Mountain
Liupan the Mountain of Six Circles
Snow
Capture of Nanking
Poem for Liu Ya-tzu (1949)
Poem for Liu Ya-tzu (1950)
Peitaho
Swimming
The Gods
Saying Good-bye to the God of Disease (1)
Saying Good-bye to the God of Disease (2)
Return to Shaoshun
Climbing Lushan
Militia Women
To a Friend
Written on a Photograph of the Cave of the Gods
To Kuo Mo-jo (1961)
In Praise of the Winter Plum Blossom
Winter Clouds
To Kuo Mo-jo (1963)
Notes on the Poems

PART III: APPENDIXES
The Translation
Chinese Versification
Mao's Calligraphy

Mao Zedong was born in Hunan Province in 1893, son of an impoverished peasant. In October 1949, he founded the People's Republic of China, which he led until his death in 1976. Willis Barnstone is Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature at Indiana University, the author of many books, and a noted translator.