When I Find You Again, It Will Be in Mountains [Paperback]

Mike O'Connor (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2000

Chia Tao (779-843), an erstwhile Zen monk who became a poet during China's T'ang Dynasty, recorded the lives of the sages, masters, immortals, and hermits who helped establish the great spiritual tradition of Zen Buddhism in China. Presented in both the original Chinese and Mike O'Connor's beautifully crafted English translation, When I Find You Again, It Will Be in Mountains brings to life this preeminent poet and his glorious religious tradition, offering the fullest translation of Chia Tao's poems to date.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Mike O'Conner's precise, elegant translations bring to life the poetry of the "cold, lean" Chia Tao (779-843)..." -- Sam Hamill

Each of Mike O'Connor's spare, weathered cadences has the heft of a good walking stick. Can anyone say what kinship joins two poets separated by twelve centuries, a hundred thundering river gorges, ten thousand icy nights? If there's an answer this book holds it. A crisp introduction and well informed bibliography are all the more reason to light a stick of incense." - Andrew Schelling, The Jack Kerouac School -- Andrew Schelling, The Jack Kerouac School

Mike O'Connor has done a fine poet's job of translation here, energetically alert to delicacies of shade and tone. His ear and phrasing are incisive, the pictures are both stark and lovely. -- Anne Waldman, poet and co-founder of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, The Naropa Institute

Mike O'Connor's renderings, accurate and eminently readable...represent an unusually happy meeting of poet and translator, one that will please poetry lovers and students of Chinese culture alike." -- Burton Watson

About the Author

Mike O'Connor is a poet, translator, and co-editor of The Clouds Should Know Me By Now: Buddhist Poet Monks of China (0861711432). He lives in Port Townsend, Washington.

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Wisdom Publications; 1 edition (November 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0861711726
• ISBN-13: 978-0861711727
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.8 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #163,460 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #55 in Books > Education & Reference > Foreign Language Nonfiction > Chinese

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Quiet Voice from the T'ang, January 8, 2001

By 

William Bridges (Franklin, IN United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: When I Find You Again, It Will Be in Mountains (Paperback)

This is a luminous book. Mike O'Connor's translations of the T'ang Dynasty poet Chia Tao bring his poems fully into the best English. I read the three sections of this as they originally appeared from the Tangram press, and didn't think they could be improved, but they have been---and O'Connor has given just enough scholarly "apparatus" to help the reader without overwhelming. The Chinese texts are given unobtrusively along with the English. The poems speak quietly of visits with mountain hermits, meetings and partings, travel before dawn, the slow turn of seasons. I keep giving this book away to friends who should know Chia Tao---and O'Connor's fine work.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mountain Meeting with a Melodious Ex-Monk, May 2, 2007

By 

Crazy Fox (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: When I Find You Again, It Will Be in Mountains (Paperback)

This is a long overdue book, focused as it is on the fine poetry of Chia Tao, one of the great poets of the T'ang Dynasty and yet one who has been relatively ignored in English up until now. And Mike O'Connor rights the imbalance in style. His introduction is clear and illuminating, familiarizing the reader with Chia Tao's life and times as well as with his poetics, his religiosity, and his poetic associates (including Han Yu and Meng Chiao). All of this serves well to contextualize the poems themselves, all translated with a brilliant mix of accuracy and artistry by O'Connor.

Chia Tao's poetry is not as ornate and elaborate as much of the poetry of his time, actually. It is sparse and lean, heartfelt and yet detached in a strangely Buddhist way. And I do mean "strangely Buddhist"--Chia Tao was a Zen Buddhist monk for years, and then for reasons somewhat unclear he ditched the monastery and became a layman and poet. That being so, Buddhist attitudes and themes suffuse most if not all of his poetry, but in a very individualized and aestheticized manner that is, as Americans are fond of saying nowadays, "spiritual but not religious." Or as Chia Tao himself says in one of his poems, "I have no special names of Buddha to intone; my remaining practice is this verse" ("Farewell to a T'ien-T'ai Monk" page 95). In any case, the results are deeply moving in seeming disproportion to the poet's stylistic restraint and profoundly inspiring despite (because of?) his strict avoidance of overt devotionalism.

And so whether you're interested in Chinese literature, studying Buddhism and its place in Chinese culture, or just looking for some excellent poetry, this is an indispensable and very rewarding book. Highly recommended.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Recommended for students of Buddhist history, August 15, 2001

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: When I Find You Again, It Will Be in Mountains (Paperback)

Chia Tao (779-843 AD) was a Zen monk who became a poet during China's T'ang Dynasty. His poetry recorded the lives of the sages, masters, immortals, and hermits who were responsible for establishing the great spiritual tradition of Zen Buddhism in China. Poet and translator Mike O'Connor does a superb job of presenting the poetry of Chia Tao in a bilingual format to a western readership. When I Find You Again, It Will Be In Mountains!: Selected Poems Of Chia Tao is enthusiastically recommended for students of Buddhist history, philosophy, and literature. Ferrying Across The Dry Mulberry River: A newcomer to P'ing-chou,/he stayed there ten years;/day and night/missing his old home, Ch'ang-an.//Then, inexplicably,/he went farther, across the Dry Mulberry;/only to look back on P'ing-chou/as home.