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

If a Mountain Lion Could Sing stands as the first major English translation of poems written by China’s greatest lyric poet, Xin Qiji.

Red Pine gathers and translates over 100 poems by China’s greatest lyric poet, Xin Qiji, 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, houseboats along the Yangzi, mountain monasteries--and paying respects at the poet’s grave, Red Pine makes a spiritual and physical exercise of translation. In his skilled hands, we see the unique, multifaceted nature of Xin unfold--rebel warrior, patriot, human. Political themes and ideas of intimacy cross paths, moving between the voices of statesman and lover. Written over 800 years ago, and to melodies since lost, Xin’s verses still leap across centuries to relay the universal concepts of solitude, duty, youth, aging, and nostalgia. Though ＂true mirrors are hard to come by,＂ Xin’s poems serve as haunting reflections of a man whose voice of ＂heroic abandon＂ still resonates today.

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.