The appreciation of Zen philosophy and art has become universal, and Zen poetry, with its simple expression of direct, intuitive insight and sudden enlightenment, appeals to lovers of poetry, spirituality, and beauty everywhere. This collection of translations of the classical Zen poets of China, Japan, and Korea includes the work of Zen practitioners and monks as well as scholars, artists, travelers, and recluses, ranging from Wang Wei, Hanshan, and Yang Wanli, to Shinkei, Basho, and Ryokan.

A Zen poem is nothing other than an expression of the enlightened mind, a handful of simple words that disappear beneath the moment of insight to which it bears witness. Poetry has been an essential aid to Zen Buddhist practice from the dawn of Zen—and Zen has also had a profound influence on the secular poetry of the countries in which it has flourished. Here, two of America’s most renowned poets and translators provide an overview of Zen poetry from China and Japan in all its rich variety, from the earliest days to the twentieth century. Included are works by Lao Tzu, Han Shan, Li Po, Dogen Kigen, Saigyo, Basho, Chiao Jan, Yuan Mei, Ryokan, and many others. Hamill and Seaton provide illuminating introductions to the Chinese and Japanese sections that set the poets and their work in historical and philosophical context. Short biographies of the poets are also included.

From the editors of Zen Poems of China and Japan comes the largest and most comprehensive collection of its kind to appear in English. This collaboration between a Japanese scholar and an American poet has rendered translations both precise and sublime, and their selections, which span fifteen hundred years—from the early T’ang dynasty to the present day—include many poems that have never before been translated into English. Stryk and Ikemoto offer us Zen poetry in all its diversity: Chinese poems of enlightenment and death, poems of the Japanese masters, many haiku—the quintessential Zen art—and an impressive selection of poems by Shinkichi Takahashi, Japan’s greatest contemporary Zen poet. With Zen Poetry, Lucien Stryk and Takashi Ikemoto have graced us with a compellingly beautiful collection, which in their translations is pure literary pleasure, illuminating the world vision to which these poems give permanent expression.

Throughout his eventful life as a monk, poet, novelist, political dissident, husband, and father, Ko Un has remained a traveler on the Way. The poems in this collection, though strictly within the true Zen tradition, are as witty and down-to-earth as they are contemplative. Described by Allen Ginsberg as “thought-stopping Koan-like mental firecrackers,” the poems reflect both writer and reader. First published in 1997, the new edition features a more sympathetic translation and 11 original brush paintings by the author.

The hermit-monk Ryokan, long beloved in Japan both for his poetry and for his character, belongs in the tradition of the great Zen eccentrics of China and Japan. His reclusive life and celebration of nature and the natural life also bring to mind his younger American contemporary, Thoreau. Ryokan's poetry is that of the mature Zen master, its deceptive simplicity revealing an art that surpasses artifice. Although Ryokan was born in eighteenth-century Japan, his extraordinary poems, capturing in a few luminous phrases both the beauty and the pathos of human life, reach far beyond time and place to touch the springs of humanity.

A unique voice in American poetry evocative of Han Shan’s Zen verses, Pablo Neruda’s Book of Questions, and the writings of Jack Kerouac. What a long conversation we never had! All those rivers? we never crossed together. You so busy with your own life, I so busy with mine. Dick Allen, one of the founders of the Expansive Poetry movement, has won the Robert Frost Prize, the Hart Crane Poetry Prize, and the Pushcart Prize—among others. His work has been anthologized five times in the Best American Poetry volumes, and has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Tricycle, The Buddhist Poetry Review, and The American Poetry Review, as well as numerous other publications. He’s a former fellow of the National Endowment for the Arts, and a former Poet Laureate for the state of Connecticut, where he lives and writes.