ARTS: Poetry — What are you reading?

[JimInBC]

I am currently read the poetry of Robert Frost.

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[Koushi]

I’ve been flipping through an old book of poems I’ve had for years called “The Best Loved Poems of the American People”. Until tonight, I never looked at the first empty page, and now I realize what a treasure I have:

72111AFB-0DCC-4B60-BAAB-2FA99C3ED50F.jpeg

It reads:

“Ernie,

Remember how we used to read poems to each other? I do. I love you.

Betty”

Along with that one of the poems I read today says:

Through this toilsome world, alas!
Once and only once I pass;
If a kindness I may show,
If it’s a good deed I may do
To a suffering fellow man,
Let me do it while I can.
No delay, for it is plain
I shall not pass this way again.

—Unknown

Gassho,
Koushi
ST

[Gareth]

I’m reading a collection of Haiku: “The River of Heaven - The Haiku of Basho, Buson, Issa and Shiki”, by Robert Aitken.

Gassho,
Gareth

Sat today

[Seikan]

Thanks everyone! Its great to see such a wide variety of poetry being enjoyed by Treeleaf folks. Keep 'em coming!

Koushi, I love that poem. Thank you for sharing.

I also enjoy reading old inscriptions in used books. I have the following collection of poems by Edgar Allan Poe, and while the inscription isn't nearly as touching as the one you shared, I still get a kick out of the fact that this book was given as a present over 130 years ago...

Gassho,
Seikan

-stlah-



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[JimInBC]

I’m reading a collection of Haiku: “The River of Heaven - The Haiku of Basho, Buson, Issa and Shiki”, by Robert Aitken.

Gassho,
Gareth

Sat today

Oh, I love that collection! Enjoy!

Gassho,
Jim
Stlah

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[Risho]

Thank you Seikan

You've inspired me to dig into 'The Complete Cold Mountain. Poems by the legendary hermit Hanshan' Trans. Kazuaki Tanahashi & Peter Levitt.

It's been sitting on my tablet for over a year! Maybe I'll give writing a whirl too...maybe!

Gassho, Yokai (Chris) sat/lah

I love this book! I have it on my table and pick it up all the time; thumb to a random page and read a poem; great stuff!

gassho

risho
-stlah

[Gareth]

Oh, I love that collection! Enjoy!

Gassho,
Jim
Stlah

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Thanks, I really like it too. The commentary makes a big difference for me.

Gassho,
Gareth

Sat today

[Tai Shi]

I still think often of my own death. As my new signature shows. I believe I have learned "impermanence." With this I am a happy man. I will finish Being Peace and I am graduating to metta. Therefore, I will start a wonderful book. I lectured about this book 10 years ago before I understood metta at All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church where I had begun an "Insight Meditation" group. This group folded about 10 weeks into it's beginning because I think I did not understand metta. The book I will begin next is called Loving Kindness, and it is a classic. 11 years ago I was not ready for much because I was very ill, but I began my Buddhism with breathe counting which a friend, who I was with just before her passing, had recommended from her book How to Meditate. For many years I have been unable to find this How to Meditate, and I was not entirely truthful with my friend at the time of her passing. That was 1981, and she asked me at her passing, "Are you still with your lady friend?" I said yes. Today that lady friend who I married in 1982 is still my wife, and we have no plans to ever make this otherwise. Today I believe I understand metta largely because of my friend who passed in 1981. After Becoming Peace I will read Loving Kindness about metta. I understand metta today because of Kokuu who has taught me Tonglen. Tonglen evolves naturally out of metta, so the next book I will read is a book I will read with more understanding; Loving Kindness. I read this book in honor of my friend who passed in 1981, and who was the first person to suggest in 1976 that I meditate. She taught me the most I knew about life at that time of my recovery. The book Loving Kindness I think I will understand more. Jundo please do not delete this post because it is not like my old posts, and you know I like to tell stories. It is read with Loving Kindness for my friend who died in 1981. Much metta, the Buddha's words on metta, for our Sangha.
Gassho
sat/lah
Tai Shi

[Onkai]

Such a wonderful thread! So much I want to read.

Right now I'm reading The First Free Women: Original Poems Inspired By the Early Buddhist Nuns. The poet is a man in the twenty-first century. He doesn't translate the original Therigatha (“Verses of the Elder Nuns”), which were written around Buddha's time. He writes poems based on those poems. It's a little controversial, but I find his poems to be beautiful.

Another collection I started and is inspiring and I mean to get back to is African American Poetry 250 Years of Struggle and Song, Keving Young, Editor, A Library of America Anthology.

I haven't always appreciated poetry, but now I'm finding some that speak to my heart.

Gassho,
Onkai
Sat/lah

[bakera3312]

I dont know if it counts, but for my degree I am reading the Pali canon and varies writings on Buddhist schools.



Tony,

[Jundo]

Such a wonderful thread! So much I want to read.

Right now I'm reading The First Free Women: Original Poems Inspired By the Early Buddhist Nuns. The poet is a man in the twenty-first century. He doesn't translate the original Therigatha (“Verses of the Elder Nuns”), which were written around Buddha's time. He writes poems based on those poems. It's a little controversial, but I find his poems to be beautiful.

Yes, that book has been criticized as a man's writing something so far removed from the originals that he has basically stuffed words and his male 21st century sensibilities into the mouths of the ancient nuns. My previous comment:

if someone offers "translations" that are so far removed from the original that they are not really the original at all, then there is a problem. This book of poems seems to step over the line. That is though even though it seems that the author tried to disclose what he was doing in his introduction, at least to some degree. For example, his poem below seems to have little connection to the original. When we look at the controversial "translation" here by Weingast compared to the more literal and faithful to the original poems by the two scholars on the left side, you see that Weingast is on another planet. It barely reflects the original and is not a "translation."

In an interview, from the 8:20 mark to 12:00, he seems to say that it ran away with him, and it was mostly his own words as much or more than the women.

https://soundcloud.com/user-426156245/the-first-free-women-with

Here is one example:

Therīgāthā - Close translation of the original by a scholar and practitioner
I gave up my home, my child, my cattle, and all that I love, and went forth. And now that I’ve given up desire and hate, dispelled ignorance, and plucked out craving root and all, I’m at peace, I’m quenched.

Weingast
When I left the only home I’d ever known, I thought I’d left everything behind. But I was still carrying all the years of running back and forth and around in circles after this or that. Just sitting still, those circles have broken apart and been carried away by this simple wind blowing in and out. All your old thoughts like snow falling on warm ground. Just sit back and watch.

https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t...cripture/18681

Gassho, Jundo

Sorry to run long

SatTodayLAH

[Jundo]

Such a wonderful thread! So much I want to read.

Right now I'm reading The First Free Women: Original Poems Inspired By the Early Buddhist Nuns. The poet is a man in the twenty-first century. He doesn't translate the original Therigatha (“Verses of the Elder Nuns”), which were written around Buddha's time. He writes poems based on those poems. It's a little controversial, but I find his poems to be beautiful.

Yes, that book has been criticized as a man's writing something so far removed from the originals that he has basically stuffed words and his male 21st century sensibilities into the mouths of the ancient nuns.

if someone offers "translations" that are so far removed from the original that they are not really the original at all, then there is a problem. This book of poems seems to step over the line. That is so even though it seems that the author tried to disclose what he was doing in his introduction, at least to some degree. For example, his poem below seems to have little connection to the original. When we look at the controversial "translation" here by Weingast compared to the more literal and faithful to the original poems by the two scholars on the left side, you see that Weingast is on another planet. It barely reflects the original and is not a "translation."

In an interview, from the 8:20 mark to 12:00, he seems to say that it ran away with him, and it was mostly his own words as much or more than the women.

https://soundcloud.com/user-426156245/the-first-free-women-with

Here is one example.

Therīgāthā - Close translation of the original by a scholar and practitioner
I gave up my home, my child, my cattle, and all that I love, and went forth. And now that I’ve given up desire and hate, dispelled ignorance, and plucked out craving root and all, I’m at peace, I’m quenched.

Weingast
When I left the only home I’d ever known, I thought I’d left everything behind. But I was still carrying all the years of running back and forth and around in circles after this or that. Just sitting still, those circles have broken apart and been carried away by this simple wind blowing in and out. All your old thoughts like snow falling on warm ground. Just sit back and watch.

https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t...cripture/18681

On more example. Asavas means influxes, or mental defilements, in traditional Buddhism. The top translation is quite close to the original:



Gassho, Jundo

Sorry to run long

SatTodayLAH

[Onkai]

Is the translation of the Therigata by Charles Hallisey good? Thank you.

Gassho,
Onkai
Sat/lah

[Jundo]

Is the translation of the Therigata by Charles Hallisey good? Thank you.

Gassho,
Onkai
Sat/lah

I cannot comment as a poet, but it is of much higher repute as a close translation of the originals. Charles Hallisey is very respected, the "Yehan Numata Senior Lecturer on Buddhist Literatures at Harvard University."

Gassho, Jundo

STLah

[brucef]

The Zen Poetry of Dogen: Verses from the Mountain of Eternal Peace by Steven Heine.

It’s a fascinating book that shows another side of Dogen.

“In the dead of the night,
The moon low in the sky,
As Shakyamuni enters parinirvana,
The jade forest, turning white,
Cannot play host to
A thousand-year-old crane
Whose glistening feathers
Fly right by the empty nest.”

Gassho
Bruce
ST/LAH