Li Po (701-762 / Chu / Kazakhstan)

I like this poem. It brings me to places where I am alone. Sometimes I drink wine alone, and I enjoyed more when my companions talk on diverse things going to nothing. This is a poem of all times.

I would like to say that i enjoyed the poem, and furthermore Straw's mild adaptation made it a little easier to feel and understand what was trying to be portrayed. Words may be substituted when translated because what word works in one language may not fit the emotion in another. Thusly Olivarez, i feel that although Straw could easily have chosen kinder words to explain, he is right. Side note the K is by the L on almost all keyboards so he likely typed in a rush to post and move on, not noticing his mild mistake.

Can anyone explain why Mr. Straw (who certainly appears to be a fine poet) seems so angry, so often?
Does the sun refuse to shine into his window upon the world?

hmm, I'm sure I read a translation of this that flowed heaps better

Fine poem having conventional ideas of wine drinking. Full of rapture and ecstacy. Though the translation is a bit jerky yet it coveys the central theme of the poem successfully.

UHH I't's Olivarez Mr. Great critic, not Okivarez.

Unfortunately as I told you in our private letter, you seem to have appointed yourself the Judge Jury and Executioner for all of us on poemhunter and you also believe you know better than all the great poets, because you always change their words and substitute your own. I think you are just arrogant, and full of yourself. Nuff said.

Okivarez - I was not changing a great poet's work, I was trying to better a fourth rate translator's translation. What you are saying is that no poem or translation can be faulted, that they are all perfect. What you want is that we all leave our critical faculties in the cupboard when we read poetry. Your attitude is, in a word, stupid. I suggest you wake up and smell the coffee, and bring your mind along with you when you read poetry!

Olivarez - If you had an ear and an eye you would see that this translation clunks along like an old jalopy. What you are saying is that every poem and every translation cannot be faulted. I suggest you wake up and smell the coffee!

You can no more change a great poets work by using your own words(that is the worst kind of egotism) as you can change a great story like Wuthering Heights and make it a movie. It has always astonished me that people think they know better than the author of the piece. I am sure the person or persons that translated the piece know so much better. Like Pope when he had The Odyssey translated, he hired the best translators he did not fly by the seat of his pants, or did additions and corrections on the spurr of the moment.