{"id":4811,"date":"2017-03-26T11:06:44","date_gmt":"2017-03-26T19:06:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rightreading.com\/blog\/?p=4811"},"modified":"2017-03-27T10:22:17","modified_gmt":"2017-03-27T18:22:17","slug":"the-lost-poems-of-cangjie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightreading.com\/blog\/poetry\/the-lost-poems-of-cangjie\/","title":{"rendered":"The Lost Poems of Cangjie<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Winter<\/a>

Front cover of The Lost Poems of Cangjie: Winter Blossom<\/em>, 2011, by Hung Liu.\u00a0Woodcut with acrylic; 23.25 x 23.5 in. Copyright \u00a9 2011 by Hung Liu<\/p><\/div>\n

Subtle, sweet, subversive, and sly, The Lost Poems of Cangjie<\/em><\/a> will leave many readers puzzled \u2013 and, equally, delighted. The core of the book consists of two series of lyrical, imagistic poems, both apparently made up of fragmented ancient Chinese verses somewhat in the style of the classic Book of Songs<\/em>. Individual poems mostly are short, both in line length and in number of lines, and most explore themes of longing and forbidden love.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not kidding when I say ancient. The two poem sequences, as explained in a sort of Borgesian prose frame that describes their origin and discovery, were preserved in scrolls concealed within one of the terra-cotta warriors of the First Emperor\u2019s underground army. One, the \u201cBeta Scroll,\u201d was written near the time of their concealment, which is to say, around 210 BCE, when the Qin dynasty collapsed and was replaced with the Han. (That places these verses roughly contemporaneous with the poems of \u00a0Apollonius of Rhodes, author of the Argonautica<\/em>, and a good century and a half before Vergil.)<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s nothing compared to the longer \u201cAlpha Scroll,\u201d which is attributed to Cangjie, the legendary founder of Chinese writing. He is supposed to have lived two and a half millennia earlier still, during the reign of the primogenitor of Chinese culture, the Yellow Emperor. In other words, he is more distant in the past from the author of the Beta Scroll than we are in the present. If these poems are indeed the work of Cangjie, that would make them the oldest extant poems in the world by a considerable margin.<\/p>\n

Despite the vast time separation, the two scrolls are similar both stylistically and thematically. This may be attributable in part to the transcription (or translation) of the Cangjie poems by the later Chinese poet, known as \u201cthe Sculptor\u201d because of his work as one of the creators of the First Emperor\u2019s underground army. In addition, both poem series are translated into English by a mysterious figure known only as \u201cE. O.\u201d The translator also provides an afterword.<\/p>\n

But the book begins with a foreword by John Briscoe, who identifies himself as \u201ca lawyer whose practice takes me to East Asia.\u201d There, we are told, he met E.O., who asked him \u201cto act as agent to bring this work to publication.\u201d (Briscoe in turn asked me to assist in producing the publication \u2014 under the imprint of Risk Press, directed by Charlie Pendergast \u2014 and I will talk a bit about the book\u2019s design in a subsequent post.)<\/p>\n

\"Seventeenth-century<\/a>

Seventeenth-century portrait of Cangjie (detail)\u00a0by an unknown artist.<\/p><\/div>\n

Briscoe touches on the story of the poems’ creation and their journey into English, but this is explained most fully in the translator\u2019s afterword. E. O.\u2019s prose style is more florid than Briscoe\u2019s (though this is not particularly evident in the poems). This is how he begins:<\/p>\n

When words first pealed the ecstasy of sunrise, cried the ache of moonrise, sounded the desolation of this life, we don\u2019t know. We don\u2019t know when sounds first stood as words for we, for home. We don\u2019t know whether a word for home existed before a word for returning home, or for the unutterable ache to return home. We do know, though, that like many words, like whole languages, those clusters of words we call poetry arc like meteors. They blaze brief, if at all. If it is particularly right, for its time, or all time, and if the people who spoke it are not all dead or, if written down, and the libraries holding it have not been put to the torch, then a poetry might persist longer, more like a comet than a meteor, a comet plying the night sky that in the end fades into the cosmos. A poetry that survives centuries, however, much less millennia, stands in the firmament like a constellation, wandering at seasons beyond the horizon, but in time returning to the night sky.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

E. O.\u2019s telling of the discovery of the scrolls is cloaked in circumspection for political reasons. \u201cVagueness,\u201d he tells us, \u201cis the better part of discretion, which is better here than any valor.\u201d A young archaeologist, E. O. explains, chanced upon the scrolls within the torso of a terra-cotta soldier as he was working on the excavation of the underground army. To the First Emperor is traditionally attributed a great Burning of the Books, and these scrolls were apparently hidden to avoid that fate. Worried that the scrolls might even today be suppressed or destroyed for political reasons \u2014 because they are critical of political rulers and might be seen as seditious \u2014 the archaeologist concealed his discovery and removed the scrolls. Eventually the\u00a0poems were translated by E. O. into English.<\/p>\n

I mentioned that the scrolls share certain themes. The archaeologist\u2019s concern about the possibility of their being viewed as seditious results from a shared animus toward emperors and their high-handed governance. Each poet served a strong emperor: Cangjie the Yellow Emperor and the Sculptor the First Emperor (although the Yellow Emperor preceded him by millennia, Qin Shihuang is known as the First Emperor because he unified China only a couple of centuries before the beginning of the common era). In the words of E. O.,<\/p>\n

A number of the verses of Cangjie speak (not at all with affection) of an emperor, the Yellow Emperor. Verses of the sculptor, the transcriber of Cangjie\u2019s poems, also speak occasionally of an emperor, the First Emperor. At times Cangjie\u2019s emperor seems a conjured emperor, at times not. The loathed emperor of the sculptor, though, is not a conjured emperor, no mere metaphor for life\u2019s oppressions and petty oppressors. He is, plainly, the historical figure the First Emperor, the Burner of the Books.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For example, the Sculptor writes the First Emperor<\/p>\n

First Emperor is only
\nan emperor, only
\nanother emperor.
\nBut this emperor burns our books.
\nBurners of books
\nin the end burn people.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

while\u00a0Cangjie writes of the Yellow Empeor<\/p>\n

Emperor practices jealousy
\nas if it were an art
\nlike falconry, or archery.
\nHe more than lusts,
\nhe is more than jealous,
\nhe is envious of the beauty
\nsleeping languid in your skin
\nand not in his.
\nHe seethes when he sees you before him.
\nDoes he take you thinking
\nyou will ravish him
\nand he will be reborn as you?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The object of the Yellow Empeor\u2019s lust was one of his concubines, who perhaps resembled the woman depicted in the cover art by contemporary artist Hung Liu<\/a>.\u00a0 Cangjie loved this woman, who of course was unattainable to him, and, we are told, invented writing to communicate his love to her. As the Sculptor explains:<\/p>\n

Cangjie watched
\nin mudded shallows
\nthe tracks long-legged
\nwading birds made,
\nlittle prints the feet of song birds
\nleft in snow.<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

The prints of feet of song birds
\nwere pictures of words
\nfor moonset, and breast
\nand yes.<\/p>\n

An egret leapt into flight
\nleaving in sand the etched word
\nlove.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Cangjie perhaps alludes to teaching his love to read his poems in the first fragment of his series (part of which was indecipherable to the translator):<\/p>\n

You have listened to my poems. Now
\nI teach you
\nto see them \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0to [?.?.?.?]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Mostly his poems express his love and longing. The poems are imagistic, economical, heartfelt, and lovely. The fascinating prose frame that surrounds them (and sometimes manifests in footnotes to the poems themselves), should not cause us to overlook the poetic quality of the verses themselves. These verses, for example, are typical of Canjie:<\/p>\n

Like your lashes
\nyour hands flutter?\u2014
\nquails in a bush
\nat an approach?\u2014
\nmine
\nthis time.<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

The court lights \u2014 has a sun pierced
\nclouds outside?
\nNo, it is you entering,
\nsmiling. You have, I think,
\ndrunk more than a cup of wine.<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

A band of players pipes
\na tune, an air?\u2014
\nno, it is you
\nlaughing
\nsomewhere in the open court.
\nI will have another cup
\nbrought to you.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Is it all an elaborate put-on? Perhaps, but the sentiments are real\u00a0and the verses are moving, informed by poetical tradition and crafted with an awareness of poetic technique. Borges would have loved the deadpan literate frame, and Cervantes \u2014 whose Quixote<\/em> is attributed to a Moorish author, Cide Hamete Benengeli \u2014 would have appreciated the possibly deflected authorial attribution. And even more the empathatic impulse to acknowledge\u00a0universal human feelings across vast cultural boundaries. The Lost Poems of Canjie<\/em> is one of the most original and fulfilling books I have read in a long time. Highly recommended.<\/p>\n