Yin Mountain
Translated by Rebecca Nie
Translated by Peter Levitt
Freshly translated poems reveal the complexity, self-realization, and spiritual freedom of three classical Daoist women poets.
Yin Mountain presents a fascinating window onto the lives of three Tang Dynasty Daoist women poets. Li Ye (c. 734–784), Xue Tao (c. 768–832), and Yu Xuanji (843–868) lived and wrote during the period when Chinese poetry reached its greatest height. Yet while the names of the male poets of this era, such as Tu Fu, Li Bo, and Wang Wei, are all easily recognized, the names of its accomplished women poets are hardly known at all.
Through the lenses of mysticism, naturalism, and ordinary life, the five dozen poems collected here express these women’s profound devotion to Daoist spiritual practice. Their interweaving of plain but poignant and revealing speech with a compelling and inventive use of imagery expresses their creative relationship to the myths, legends, and traditions of Daoist Goddess culture. Also woven throughout the rich tapestry of their writing are their sensuality and their hard-wrought, candid emotions about their personal loves and losses. Despite that these poets’ extraordinary skills were recognized during their lifetimes, as women they struggled relentlessly for artistic, emotional, and financial independence befitting their talent. The poems exude the charged charisma of their refusal to hold back within a culture, much like our own, that was cosmopolitan yet still restrictive of women’s freedom.
Skillfully introduced and translated by acclaimed translators Peter Levitt and Rebecca Nie, these wonderful poems will resonate with the lives of spiritual practitioners today, especially women.
"An epoch-making endeavor. The brilliance of the translations in Yin Mountain is breathtaking." —Kazuaki Tanahashi
"How wonderful to meet my long-lost sisters from Tang Dynasty China. They speak to me of their struggle for recognition as women, their love of the natural world, and their commitment to a spiritual path. They inspire with their courageous assertions of autonomy and their longings for connection." —Susan Moon, author of The Hidden Lamp: Stories from Twenty-five Centuries of Awakened Women
"This exquisite collection of poems is filled with beauty, surprise, the everyday, and the sublime. It is a book that will move and inspire." —Joan Halifax, author of Standing at the Edge
"With Yin Mountain, translators Peter Levitt and Rebecca Nie invite us into the worlds of three exceptional Tang-era Daoist women poets. Redolent with imagery and metaphor, steeped in the familiar and the strange, the poems in this collection comfort and challenge as they dance between interpenetrating dualities of mind and body, love and loss, yearning and contentment, intimacy and distance. Savor these poems—in translation and the original Chinese characters—with the guidance of Levitt and Nie’s contextualizing notes. Clouds and rain, silk and talons, dragon bells and hawk perches, wild moths and pebble friends—such things will never be the same after reading this book." —Chenxing Han, author of Be the Refuge: Raising the Voices of Asian American Buddhists
"These beautiful translations reveal the spiritual depth of these powerful women’s poetry, and take us deep inside the mysteries of Daoism’s ancient goddess culture." —Meredith McKinney, translator of The Pillow Book
"Yin Mountain is an easily accessible and reliable introduction to the lives and work of three enticing Daoist women poets of medieval China. These elegantly rendered poetic traces of their self-realization in the face of many of the same challenges we face today cannot but comfort and inspire." —Stephen R. Bokenkamp, translator of A Fourth-Century Daoist Family: The Zhen’gao, or Declarations of the Perfected, Volume 1
"There is no better way to capture the primordial essence or spirit of things than through the breath of poetry. In Yin Mountain, Levitt and Nie bring to life through poetry the goddess culture not often acknowledged in Chinese Daoism. Here, three Daoist female poets are brought into the light where all can experience the passion of yin and the love and mysticism within it. This book is truly an added gem to the existing ancient teachings of priestesses, nuns, and goddesses around the world." —Zenju Earthlyn Manuel, author of The Shamanic Bones of Zen
"The introduction of women poets from ancient China to Western audiences is itself an epoch-making endeavor. The brilliance of the translations in Yin Mountain and the elucidation of the background material are breathtaking." —Kazuaki Tanahashi, cotranslator of The Complete Cold Mountain: Poems of the Legendary Hermit Hansha
"Ever since Ezra Pound ‘discovered’ Chinese poetry for the English-speaking world, the strange and delicate allure of this subtle tradition has been part of our culture. These versions are lovely—in the fullest sense." —Norman Fischer, author of When You Greet Me I Bow
"I always wondered what was on the other side of China’s Poetry Mountain. Now that I’ve become the guest of Daoist priestesses and courtesans, I have to ask myself whether I should let my friends know or keep this to myself." —Red Pine, author of The Clouds Should Know Me by Now: Buddhist Poet Monks of China
"While male poets of the era are well known, these women have remained virtually unread. These spiritual, sensitive, and surprising poems offer a memorable introduction to three singular women poets." —Publishers Weekly