Dreaming the Mountain: Poems by Tu S

(Paperback, Bilingual edition)

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The North American debut of Tu Spoet, monk, scholar, dissident, and one of the great cultural figures of modern Vietnamand a new bilingual edition to the Seedbank series.

In addition to being a preeminent scholar of world philosophy and a Zen master, TuS is one of Vietnams most celebrated poets. He is a survivor of sixteen years of imprisonment and an eloquent witness to the tumult, tragedy, and resilience of his country over the last sixty yearsand a full-length translation of his work into English is long overdue.

Assembled and co-translated by Vietnamese poet and essayist Nguyen Ba Chung and acclaimed American poet Martha Collins, Dreaming the Mountain reflects a lifetime of creation, crisis, and commitment. With poems presented on facing pages in Vietnamese and English, this volume includes the early imagism of Tu Ss Zen studies as a scholar and critic, midlife work that represents his attempted retreat from the devastation of war and subsequent years of imprisonment, and late, elliptical poems that give intensely lyrical expression to a lifetime of profound experience. From the fleeting dream of red blood at dusk to the quiet determination of one who sets out to repaint the dawn, these poems reflect the journey of an artist who speaks for his country, who captures its darkness and its light.

At once personal and universal, coolly observant and deeply compassionate, the poems of Tu S bring singular attention to a fleeting, painfully beautiful world.

Reviews

Praise for the Seedbank Series

Milkweeds Seedbank series is one of the most exciting and visionary projects in contemporary publishing. Taking the long view, these volumes run parallel to the much-hyped books of the moment to demonstrate the possibility and hope inherent in all great literature.Stephen Sparks, Point Reyes Books

Through its cultural-linguistic contribution to narrative diversity, Milkweed's Seedbank series is a vital tool in imagining the futures possible for humanity beyond the anthropocene. Bringing works from Greek, K'iche', German, Russian (and more!) whose authors are deeply rooted in their homelands, each voice encountered has resonated with me on a seemingly cellular levelshifting and changing both who I am and can be. I will continue to press these books into the hands of compassionate readers and cannot wait to share the forthcoming titles in the project!Erin Pineda, 27th Letter Books

"Milkweed as a publishing house has long been championing literary works both fictitious and true to life centered around culture, nature, and environmentalism. The Seedbank series serves as both a marvelous introduction to the books Milkweed provides and as a collection of essential stories that ought to be on everyone's radar. The words behind these front covers highlight life-changing experiences, knowledge, and ways of life from communities that are seldom otherwise heard from in the publishing world through an authentic cultural lens. What I've read from the Seedbank line is phenomenal, and I look forward to spending time with future works in the series."Andrew King, Secret Garden Books

Praise for Martha Collinss Translations

A dazzling poet whose poetry is poised at the juncture between the lyric and ethics, Collins has addressed some of the most traumatic social issues of the twentieth century in supple and complex poems.AWP Chronicle

Underlying tensions animate these arresting poems by Ngo Tu Lap [in Black Stars], movingly translated by Martha Collins and the author. . . . We, as readers, are enriched.Arthur Sze, author of Sight Lines

A delightful aspect of My Das poetry [in Green Rice] is the surprising way it summons human feeling from the ancient landscape, from river and field, from fruit and fragrant tree, culling a contemporary self from timeless images. In carrying this across into English, My Da could not have found better translators than Thuy Dinh and Martha Collins.John Balaban, author of Empires

[Nguyen Quang Thieus The Women Carry River Water] is both timely and necessary for those who are interested in learning more about contemporary Vietnamese culture, literature, and poetry. The translations are perfect.Ngo Nhu Binh, Harvard University

Author Bio

Tu S is the author of Dreaming the Mountain. Born in 1943 in Pakse (Laos) as Phm Vn Thng,hejoined the Lm T (Linji) Buddhist order in 1950. Educated in in Nha Trang and Saigon, he became a tenured professor at Van HanhUniversity in 1970, and served aseditor in chief of the UniversitysT Tng(Thoughts)journal from 1972 to 1974. The author ofmore than fifty works, he is recognized as one of the most important Buddhist scholars in Vietnam. His numerous works on Buddhism includeGeneral Outline of Zen, The Philosophy of Sunyata, andThe Myth of Vimalakirti, and translated into Vietnamese Daisetz T. SuzukisEssays in Zen Buddhism, translations of the Buddhist sutras, and other Chinese and Pali texts. S also authored studies on the life and work of poets Du Fu and Su Dongpo, on the work of Martin Heidegger and Friedrich Hlderlin, and was the first to introduce the works of Michel Foucault to a Vietnamese audience.Many of his early poems and short storieswere published inKhi Hnhmagazine (19691972) andThi Tp(19731975). Imprisoned from 1978 to 1981 and again from 1984 to 1998, he has lived in Ho Chi Minh City since his release. Nguyen Ba Chungis the co-translator of Dreaming the Mountain. He is a writer, poet and translator whose essays and translations have appeared in Vietnam Forum, New Asia Review, Boston Review, Compost, Nation, Manoa, Vietnam Reflections (TV History), and elsewhere. Beginning in 1987, he was associated with the William Joiner Institute of the University of Massachusetts Boston, responsible for bringing Vietnamese writers to Boston, translating their poetry and short stories, and introducing them to an American audience. In 1996, he started working full-time there as a research associate, became director of residency for the Rockefeller Programs, and began a Summer Study Program with Hue University, Vietnam.He is the co-translator of over a dozen works, includingATime Far Past; From a Corner of My Yard; Distant Road; Six Vietnamese Poets;Le Nguyen Zen Poem; and Carrying the Mountain and River on Our Shoulders.He lives in Belmont, Massachusetts. Martha Collins is the co-translator of Dreaming the Mountain and Black Stars. She has also published eleven volumes of poetry, most recently Casualty Reports and Because What Else Could I Do, which won the Poetry Society of Americas William Carlos Williams Award. Her previous books of poetry include the paired volumes Day Unto Day and Night Unto Night, as well as a trilogy of works that focus on race, beginning with the book-length poem,Blue Front. Collins has published three additional volumes of co-translated Vietnamese poetry and coedited a number of volumes, including, with Kevin Prufer, Into English: Poems, Translations, Commentaries. Founder of the creative writing program at the University of Massachusetts Boston and former Pauline Delaney Professor of Creative Writing at Oberlin College, Collins lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.