How to Read Chinese Poetry Podcast

In this final episode, we will first listen to the “Song of Suffering Calamity” by the woman poet and scholar Wang Duanshu (1621-ca. 1680), narrating her flight from the invading Qing army during the Ming-Qing transition. We will conclude with two examples by women among the many poems in the Ming and Qing that record quotidian pleasures and reflections on daily life. Whether pain and loss or pleasure and joy, men and women in late imperial China inscribed their emotions and thoughts in poetry. Guest Host: Prof. Grace Fong

This episode discusses how the genre begins to broaden thematically in the work of somewhat later literati poets who continued to write in the short xiaoling form. Poems by the Last Emperor of the Southern Tang, Li Yu, and by Northern Song statesman Yan Shu demonstrate how the genre begins to take on themes like nostalgia and friendship. Guest Host: Dr. Maija Samei

Dear Listeners, Please accept our apologies for being late to upload this new episode of How to Read Chinese Poetry Podcast. AIGCS is pleased to launch the HOW TO READ CHINESE POETRY VIDEOS (HTRCPV), a companion program of HOW TO READ CHINESE POETRY PODCAST.  As a matter of fact, its first episodes are cross-listed as special video episodes (eps. 37-39) of the Podcast.  Unlike the Podcast, HTRCPV does not track Chinese poetry’s historical development but presents episodes in thematic clusters.  Due to the much greater technical challenges in producing videos, we will not be able to release episodes at regular intervals. We ask for kind patience from our viewers. This podcast you are listening to is the soundtrack of the first episode of HOW TO READ CHINESE POETRY VIDEOS. Taking advantage of ppt charts and animation, this episode shows viewers how to follow the three basic rules of tonal patterning to construct tonally regulated lines, then couplets, and finally quatrains.  The episode ends by inviting viewers to write out quatrain tonal patterns on their own. Click the link to watch the video and subscribe to our channel: https://youtu.be/bxp6Au7JKHE AIGCS

This episode discusses the interactions between courtesans and the literati during the Tang and how this is related to the formation of early ci poetry, and then introduces a few works by the well-known courtesan-poetess Xue Tao. Guest Host: Dr. Maija Bell Samei

This episode discusses the differences in tonal patterns between wujue and qijue, which had a clear impact on poetic practice. After the Tang, wujue became increasingly rare; we can conclude that poets no longer saw creative potential in the form—the great Tang writers had exhausted it. Qijue, on the contrary, remained one of the most popular and expressive poetic forms throughout the classical period. Guest Host: Prof. Charles Egan, San Fransico State University English poem recital by Andrew Merritt @ Andrew Merritt (divacatrecords.com)

Although Tang poets all used wujue to record concentrated poetic experience, and pursued the same fundamental aesthetic goals for the form, differing styles of poems can be discerned. Using representative poems by Wang Wei, Wang Zhihuan, and Li Bai, this episode presents two basic styles of Tang wujue, differentiated primarily by the choice of themes and the type of language employed. Guest Host: Prof. Charles Egan, San Fransico State University English poem recital by Andrew Merritt @ Andrew Merritt (divacatrecords.com)

This episode examines how Wang Wei embodies moments of heightened perception or rather Buddhist enlightenment through his painterly depiction of a mountain climbing trip. His masterful blending of illusive images, perceptual illusion, and Buddhist worldview exemplifies his towering achievement as the poet-Buddha. Host: Zong-qi Cai, Lingnan University of Hong Kong; University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign English poem recital by Andrew Merritt @ Andrew Merritt (divacatrecords.com)

This episode provides a close reading of Du Fu’s “Jiang and Han Rivers” and shows how the poet makes a masterful use of topic+comment construction to project his Confucian vision of the universe and the self and earns himself the title of poet-sage. Host: Zong-qi Cai, Lingnan University of Hong Kong; University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign English poem recital by Andrew Merritt @ Andrew Merritt (divacatrecords.com)

A brief introduction to The Book of Poetry (Shijing), the earliest Chinese poetical collection. While providing close reading of two poems, it informs us about the provenance, subgenres, presentational modes, thematic categories, and formal features of this great poetical collection. Guest Host：William H. Nienhauser, the University of Wisconsin at Madison