Selected Poems of Su Tung-P'o

Chinese is a daunting language to translate, but this new selection of poems by the leading poet of the Sung dynasty (960-1279) is in safe hands: Watson ( From the Country of Eight Islands ), a prize-winning translator of numerous volumes of Chinese and Japanese poetry, has translated and compiled an extraordinary book of poems. Su Tung-p'o was a civil servant who traveled to numerous political posts throughout the state. Hence, much of his poetry is a catalogue of his travels--their diverse landscapes, inhabitants, songs and folklore. With his lyrical precision and astonishing eye for detail, Su Tung-p'o renders the Chinese countryside with a vivid particularity: ``Purple plums, yellow melons--the village roads smell sweet; / Black gauze cap, white hemp robe--traveling clothes are cool.'' Less aesthetically rigid than earlier Chinese poets, he sought inspiration both in issues of philosophical complexity and matters of everyday life. This expansiveness, combined with a sophisticated sense of image and metaphor, created a body of work that is strikingly modern. Or, in Su Tung-p'o's own words: ``We're like a rabbit darting from preying hawks . . . lightning glimpsed through a crack.'' (Apr.)