Study of Sorrow: Translations

In Study of Sorrows, Shangyang Fang breathes contemporary life into the poems of twenty-nine Song Dynasty Ci poets.

For many years, Song Dynasty Ci poetry has seemed eclipsed by the incandescence of Tang Poetry in the English-speaking world. In Study of Sorrows, Shangyang Fang aims to bridge this gap, translating the works of twenty-nine Song Dynasty poets, many of whom are introduced to an English-speaking audience for the first time. Collated into seven parts, these poems move through grief, love, and longing, exploring the tension and connection between the material and immaterial world. Unlike traditional scholarly translations, these renditions represent the translator’s endeavor to breathe contemporary life into ancient poems, including revisions of the original text, experimentations, and even rewrites. A beautiful conversation between these poets and their translator unfolds. Shangyang masterfully navigates the irregularity of the lines, the elusiveness of the descriptions, the indirect approach to subjects, the precise musicality, the twisting language, and the unspeakable tenderness. As investigated here, ＂sorrow＂ is transformed from a mere individual sadness to a collective experience that spans time, people, and place.

Shangyang Fang grew up in Chengdu, China, and writes in both English and Chinese. A graduate from Michener Center for Writers, he is a recipient of the Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Award and the Wallace Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University. His works have appeared in The Nation, Ploughshares, The Yale Review, The Best American Poetry, The Pushcart Prize Anthology, and The Forward Book of Poetry Anthology (UK). The author of the poetry collection Burying the Mountain (Copper Canyon Press, 2021), he is an Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.