YET SOME OTHER SPRING: Poetry of Su Dongpo, poetry by Gary Stephens

Publication Date: October 15, 2023

Paperback, 90 pages

ISBN: 978-1-956782-49-3

$27.50 retail, $20.00 from publisher

It seems at first an astonishing thing that poetry written nearly a millennium ago, in another language from a distant culture, can resonate so keenly with modern readers. That’s certainly the case with this selection of seasonal poems after Su Dongpo (1037-1101), the foremost classical Chinese poet of the Sung Dynasty. That they do so is first a testament to the endurance of the human spirit, recognizable across centuries, and to the delight we still take in nature and in simple acts of everyday living. “Don’t fear falling down drunk with spring” is a timeless sentiment, as is the advice to “remember fine scenes from all seasons of the year.” We may not be acquainted with the places and names here, or the ancient melodies to which some of these poems were composed, but we know them all the same, as familiar as “a woman’s beautiful voice laughing.” For this we can be grateful for the splendid collaboration behind this collection, to Chinese scholar Ning Wang for her translations of Su Dongpo’s verse that served as the basis for Gary Stephens’ fine and sensitive English poems after the Chinese originals. Su Dongpo met adversity with equanimity, and found his greatest joy in writing. Stephens honors his life and work in these poems, and through the joy of reading them we can hope for similar peace.

Praise for Gary Stephens & Yet Some Other Spring

Organized across a year of seasons, Yet Some Other Spring, Gary Stephens’ carefully translated collection from the oeuvre of Su Dongpo, one of China’s best-known poets, allows us to hear Su’s classical voice in these eleventh century images of “this drift of life.” Included in the series are some of his poems on paintings, as well as many more selections from Su Dongpo's ci song forms (tune poems), lyrical and elegant reminders of the unrelenting march of time, separation, and transformation. “What remains of those willow catkins, what traces?” Stephens writes in a translation luminous on the page.

—Susana H. Case, author of The Damage Done & Dead Shark on the N Train

The healthy energy that Su Dongpo brought to his life and time, often seems a tonic we could use in our own. He cultivated a balance to remain optimistic and honest, even playful, in the face of resentful, vindictive force(s). The ostensibly “seasonal” poems of this collection, Yet Some Other Spring, are an engaging introduction to one of the most remarkable poets in the classical Chinese tradition.

—Robert Oxnam, President emeritus, Asia Society

About the Author

Gary Stephens’ previous book of poetry was The Studflaps of Straus Park: a narrative in verse, Bluestone Quarry Press. He is a recently retired Professor of English at the New York Institute of Technology where he taught for more than forty years. At NYIT he taught at the Nanjing campus of NYIT/NUPT off and on from 2007 to 2011. He also taught at Queens College, and courses at Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, and the Harvard Graduate School of Education. A Fulbright Fellow at Pune and Gujarat Universities, he was also an NEH fellow studying the relationships between Classical Indian and Modern English literatures at Columbia University. He has published articles in The Partisan Review, American Literary Realism, and Computers and Composition, and was an editor of The Little Magazine. He divides his time between New York City and his farmhouse near East Meredith, New York.