By Joe Survant

View from the Stork Building:

Chinese Variations

“These English “variations” are very different from the Chinese originals, but they retain the insight and strong imagery of Classical Chinese poetry.  The picture generated in the mind has a similar beauty and grace.” – Tian Xiaolin

View from the Stork Building

after Wang Zhi Huan

As short haired boys

we climbed these stairs

to look 500 miles,

where the white sun

drops behind the mountains,

where the Yellow River

runs to the sea

step up, old friend!

Let’s climb these stairs

again, still higher,

where we can see

beyond the edge of sight,

and taste the sea’s

bitter salt

Get your copy from Larkspur Press!

Joe Survant is retired from Western Kentucky University.  He is the author of six collections of poems, most recently, The Land We Dreamed, from UP of Kentucky.  His Asian poetry comes from a year of living in Malaysia and from subsequent travels over the past thirty-five years.  This book is a continuation of that interest.  Individual poems have been published in Malaysia, China, Singapore and the U.K.  He served as Kentucky’s Poet Laureate 2002-2004.

Contact Joe

joe.survant@wku.edu