If a Mountain Lion Could Sing: The Lyric Poems of Xin Qiji

If a Mountain Lion Could Sing gathers 120 translations of Xin Qiji’s verses, exploring universal concepts of solitude, duty, youth, love, and nostalgia.

Red Pine gathers and translates 120 of Xin Qiji’s lyric poems in his latest bilingual collection, If a Mountain Lion Could Sing. Visiting the very places where Xin composed his stanzas--the cassia trees of the Wu River, boathouses along the Yangzi--and paying respect at the poet’s grave, translation becomes a spiritual and physical exercise for Red Pine. In his skilled hands, Xin’s revolutionary consciousness is firmly on display. Political themes and ideas of intimacy cross paths, moving between the voices of statesman and lover. Written over 800 years ago, Xin’s verses leap across centuries to relay the universal concepts of solitude, duty, youth, aging, love, and nostalgia. Though ＂true mirrors are hard to come by,＂ Xin’s poems serve as haunting reflections of the self.

Bill Porter (Red Pine) was born in Los Angeles in 1943. While attending graduate school at Columbia University, he became interested in Buddhism and moved to Taiwan, where he began translating Chinese poetry and spiritual texts under the name Red Pine. Since returning to America in 1993, he has worked as an independent scholar. Among the awards his books have received are the Thornton Wilder Prize for Translation and the Special Book Award of China. He is the translator of numerous volumes, including, most recently, Dancing with the Dead: Essential Red Pineand Choosing to Be Simple: Collected Poems of Tao Yuanming.

Xin Qiji was born in the city of Jinan in 1140 CE and grew up in the northern half of China. He was a fierce soldier in his youth, and in later life committed himself to poetry, adding words to popular melodies. During his own lifetime four editions of his lyric poems appeared in print, and he has ever since been acknowledged as China’s greatest practitioner of this genre.