1. trans. Mabel Lee (2002)Yi. Bi-lingual edition. Los Angeles: Green Integer

2. As he points out in his Preface.

3. Yang Lian, tr. Brian Holton (1999) Where the Sea Stands Still: New Poems by Yang Lian Newcastle: Bloodaxe Books  p.139

4. The Poetics of Exile: School of European Languages and Literatures, University of Auckland, New Zealand July 2003: wonderfully organised by Mike Hanne and his team.

5. Though please, before you judge, reader, recall John Dryden: “But slaves we [translators] are, and labour on another man’s plantation; we dress the vineyard, but the wine is the owner’s: if the soil be sometimes barren, then we are sure of being scourged; if it be fruitful, and our care succeeds, we are not thanked; for the proud reader will say, the poor drudge has done his duty…” (Preface to Ovid’s Epistles, 1680)

6. This particular example is, as they say ‘written to’ Langtao Sha or Waves on the Sand: note that the content normally bears no resemblance to the title. It’s as if we were to write a new set of words to the tune of a well-known song.

7. Personal communication: e-mail 4.12.04. Yang explains this and much more (in Chinese) at http://www.poemlife.com.cn/forum/add.jsp?forumID=31&page=1&msgID=2147483420

8. Thanks to Lewis Turco: his Book of Forms (University Press of New England, 2000) is a gem of a book. You will find Cyhydedd Hir on p162-3

9. The system for making new Chinese characters is no longer productive (with the possible exception of names for chemical elements), so it is a radical and shocking step to attempt to add a new character to the corpus. How can we render that innovative boldness in the text?

10. 日, 人 and 一, in their modern forms.

11. Yang Lian, trans. Mabel Lee (2002)Yi. Los Angeles: Green Integer, p343. In a personal communication, Yang also says “the reason I put the character I invented for YI at the center of the ring-characters, is to point out the link between the two most important works of mine (Yi and Concentric Circles), in order to build up the inner-structured Poetry-world of mine: it is another level of ‘Concentric Circles’ --- Inside and Outside of China, Inside and Outside of one's own languages --- the real journey toward to the open-ended question of Poetry ---------------- POETRY IS.” (e-mail, 4.12.04)

12. See Hawkes, David A Little Primer of Tu Fu, OUP 1967, Renditions Press 1990, p.203 - 4 “From A Height” and Cooper, Arthur Li Po and Tu Fu, Penguin Classics 1973, p.227 - 8, also “From A Height”

13. The Selected Poems of Tu Fu Anvil Press 1990

14. Personal communication: email 4.12.04. Yang has also written an interesting discussion and exegesis of this poem (in English), in the Capstone Journal, 2003: see http://inside.bard.edu/capstonejounal/2003/df-index.htm