Between 1821 and 1823, Beethoven wrote his last major work for the piano, the Diabelli Variations. He took a simple theme furnished by his publisher, and added 33 variations. A few months ago, in the middle of my life, and perhaps overly sensitive to my mortality, I challenged myself to learn this piece. I set…… Continue reading Writing About The Pengyang Memorial Inscription With Emotion (or ‘Triumph’)
Associated Press announced recently that 2,975 people died in Puerto Rico during Hurricane Maria. At first, The New York Times web site placed a modest link beneath a flurry of headlines about a so called NAFTA deal, the passing of a statesman and the profile of an actor. Belatedly, it added an editorial. Most media…… Continue reading Opinion: The Lost Ones (or The Other 9/11)
In the Tang dynasty geckos were crushed in mortars to prepare a potion, which was then applied to mark a young girl’s arm. If she lost her virginity, its red color would change. This fantastic potion was used to regularly inspect and discipline women. The poet Li Shangyin wrote: The red Shou Palace lies in…… Continue reading Guest Of The Sea (or The Gecko’s Virgin Blood)
About the time Li Shangyin and I were meeting in Shenzhen, the drug wars in Central America had intensified. The United States was still a country that drew the oppressed, huddled masses. However, there was a growing sentiment in the country that change was coming too rapidly. America was turning brown and many were afraid.…… Continue reading Westwards From Jingmen (or When Beethoven Met The Migrant Kids)
On one of his travels across time, Shangyin landed in Prague. It was January 1787. During a brief stint as a reporter for Prager Oberpostamtszeitung , he interviewed the composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Mozart was a little under 5 feet tall, with an unusually large head topped with a mass of carrot colored hair. He…… Continue reading The Palace of Emperor Chen – Two Poems (Or Mozart in Prague)
A Reply Sent From The Southwest Expedition (or How Did Time Begin, And Why Does It End When One Dreams?) When I was a child time vanished, or perhaps nothing ever changed. When I made my first deep breath, the baobabs and acacia trees of the savannah and the tea and coffee bushes of the…… Continue reading A Reply Sent From The Southwest Expedition
My mother was the first of her generation to be born in America. Her father and mother escaped Russian pogroms when they were children. She was born under Sagittarius, in Brookline, Massachusetts. She didn’t know (or care) she was white and Jewish until her parents and friends learned of her Kenyan fiancé, and her mother…… Continue reading Jasper Lake (or After The Formlessness, Who Gave Things Shape?)
I do not remember the first word I said. It was not Baba, because my father was rarely around, and didn’t much like me (from what I have heard). It may have been Ma or Mama (but I only say that because of popular convention). Our childhood shapes our adulthood, and therefore if I extrapolate…… Continue reading A Little Rain
As I was biking along the Shenzhen boardwalk, I looked up. The sky was a cool plastic slate that stretched from the west, where the sun blushed behind pearly screens. Around me the sounds of hip hop mixed with the tinkle of bicycle bells, the scent of jasmine and barbecued meat. Along the shore of…… Continue reading Swallow Terrace Poems
At sunrise, on a day trip to Reno, Shangyin drove past the orange groves that cover southern California. On a whim, he stopped his car and got out. Except for an old man pruning some trees by the roadside, there was no-one in sight. The man’s face was wrinkled and dark, and he had a…… Continue reading 40 Verses Of The Muddy Well
One morning I woke in a sweat. Instinctively, I picked up my smartphone. Banner ads for insurance products and shampoo competed with news feeds about imminent wars and man-made disasters. Everywhere I looked it seemed the world was going up in flames. I wanted to write something about it, but recoiled at the thought of…… Continue reading Given to Official Liu
The Qing dynasty scholar Wang Guowei wrote of poems falling into two categories: close by or remaining at a distance. The Chinese character he uses for distance is ge（隔）, whose ancient pictogram consists of three mounds, and a three legged urn. Shangyin’s poems often evoke a distance between the reader and the word, by referring…… Continue reading Song of the Inner Palace
A Tang Poet From Nairobi 