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Pavilion of a Taoist Sage’, and was done in thanks to Alan Halsey and Ken Edwards for their work in editing Griffiths’s Collected Earlier Poems. (Both versions * .) Both Ts’ui Shu versions are * ; the second borrows a phrase from Couvreur’s French translation of the Chinese ‘Classic of History’ (Shu Ching) which drifted into my head many years after first meeting Ezra Pound quoting it in one of the Cantos in RockDrill. Not literary reference but live memory. The first Tu Fu version appeared in Damn the Cæsars magazine (2008), and is dedicated to Karen Brookman; it was read at one of her salons; second version * . The first Tu Mu version appeared in the erroneously titled ‘North Hills’, which appeared as an issue of Free Poetry magazine (2009) – the correct title should have been Minor Players ; second version * . ‘Tzü Yeh’, a nominally female poet, is almost certainly fictitious, though not my invention. Both versions of  ‘her’ poem * . The first Wang Wei version (of what is arguably the most famous Chinese poem) appeared in Wheel River (London: Contraband, 2015), featuring the entirety of a cowritten sequence by Wang and his friend P’ei Ti. An enlarged reprint will include a further seven translations of this poem in an appendix (though not the second version here, made for this book * ) . Wei Shuang’s poem is set in the ‘Jinling landscape’ that features in J. H. Prynne’s Kazoo Dreamboats, and the second version here uses only vocabulary from that book. The first version echoes a photograph by its dedicatee, Fern Bryant, seen in an exhibition of photos of China. (Both versions * .) The poem by Yü Hsuan-chi (with ‘Tzü Yeh’ the only female poet herein) was commissioned for ‘A certain slant of light: in response to the work of Emily Dickinson’, held under the aegis of the London-based events series polyply; the second version uses only Dickinson’s vocabulary to translate the same poem. (Both versions * .) Both Ch’ien Ch’i versions * ; the second one is for David Rees. The first Li Po version appeared in Veer Away magazine (2007) and Damn the Cæsars magazine (2008), and was reprinted in eye-blink (London: Veer Books, 2010); the second version was made for this book * . The poem uses a recurring Chinese poetic trope, visiting a sage in a remote retreat and finding him away. Li concentrates in consequence on what ‘is’  ‘there’, the landscape. The penultimate Li Shang-yin version appeared in eye-blink (London: Veer Books, 2010); the final version was written as a sixtieth-birthday gift for Robert Sheppard, and recognises some of his vocabulary and enthusiasms (e.g. blues harmonica, or ‘mouthharp’). ‘The cuckoo is a pretty bird, she warbles as she flies’ is an Appalachian folk-song, 230
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of British origin, collected by Harry Smith. This final Li Shang-yin poem appeared in An Educated Desire: Robert Sheppard at 60, ed. Scott Thurston (Newton-le-Willows: Knives Forks and Spoons Press, 2015). * an epithalamy, or ballad was written for the wedding of my artist and curator friends David and Carolyn, at Harty (on the Isle of Sheppey off the north Kent coast), a potential site for the hall of Heorot – which explains why stanza 2 combines Beowulf ’s lines 8 (under wolcnum), 93 (swá wæter bebúgeð) and 211 (under beorge). The Latin tag – ‘as the clinging ivy / embraces the tree’ – is from Catullus, poem lxi, an epithalamium; ‘unconcealment’ is Greek ἀ-λήθεια (again! – here reflecting David’s interest in Heidegger) and ‘rest and peace’ come, as they would, from Bach (specifically the Cantata bwv 208: ‘Kann man Ruh und Friede spüren’). The title comes from George Puttenham’s 1589 Arte of English Poesie ; as with the other wedding-poem collected here, use is made of Sappho (and Catullus) as also Spenser. * Bass adds Bass was written for the bass player Dominic Lash and performed at his ‘farewell’ concert / leaving party in London’s Café oto before a temporary move to New York in early 2011. The title and a few words are lifted from the very fine song Bass Adds Bass by Family Fodder. The party performance by myself with Dom Lash on bass was filmed by Helen Petts: www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PmFR5xNhjE Georg Trakl fails to write a Christmas poem – the nearest he got, according to a title index I started from, were ‘Im Winter’, ‘Wintergang in a-Moll’ and ‘Winternacht’. Phrases from these are permuted, a notion I got after prolonged contemplation of his often exceedingly eccentric usage of colourwords. This was published as a year’s-end card in 2014. David Davis’s bone density was written for Badge of Shame, one of a series of responsive anthologies, Purges (edited anonymously and with no place of publication given, but declared to be a ‘strong and stable production’, 2017). It was prompted by the widely reported suggestion of the elder statesman it commemorates, that refugee children should have their teeth x-rayed to assess their age – and thus whether their plight should count for anything. Since the poem was written and first published Davis has, of course, been promoted to glory, and his density has become common knowledge worldwide. There is a snatch of dentally related speech from the film Marathon Man near the close. * The Matter of Ireland is a term for the corpus of mediaeval Welsh stories 231

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Pavilion of a Taoist Sage’, and was done in thanks to Alan Halsey and Ken Edwards for their work in editing Griffiths’s Collected Earlier Poems. (Both versions * .) Both Ts’ui Shu versions are * ; the second borrows a phrase from Couvreur’s French translation of the Chinese ‘Classic of History’ (Shu Ching) which drifted into my head many years after first meeting Ezra Pound quoting it in one of the Cantos in RockDrill. Not literary reference but live memory. The first Tu Fu version appeared in Damn the Cæsars magazine (2008), and is dedicated to Karen Brookman; it was read at one of her salons; second version * . The first Tu Mu version appeared in the erroneously titled ‘North Hills’, which appeared as an issue of Free Poetry magazine (2009) – the correct title should have been Minor Players ; second version * . ‘Tzü Yeh’, a nominally female poet, is almost certainly fictitious, though not my invention. Both versions of  ‘her’ poem * . The first Wang Wei version (of what is arguably the most famous Chinese poem) appeared in Wheel River (London: Contraband, 2015), featuring the entirety of a cowritten sequence by Wang and his friend P’ei Ti. An enlarged reprint will include a further seven translations of this poem in an appendix (though not the second version here, made for this book * ) . Wei Shuang’s poem is set in the ‘Jinling landscape’ that features in J. H. Prynne’s Kazoo Dreamboats, and the second version here uses only vocabulary from that book. The first version echoes a photograph by its dedicatee, Fern Bryant, seen in an exhibition of photos of China. (Both versions * .) The poem by Yü Hsuan-chi (with ‘Tzü Yeh’ the only female poet herein) was commissioned for ‘A certain slant of light: in response to the work of Emily Dickinson’, held under the aegis of the London-based events series polyply; the second version uses only Dickinson’s vocabulary to translate the same poem. (Both versions * .) Both Ch’ien Ch’i versions * ; the second one is for David Rees. The first Li Po version appeared in Veer Away magazine (2007) and Damn the Cæsars magazine (2008), and was reprinted in eye-blink (London: Veer Books, 2010); the second version was made for this book * . The poem uses a recurring Chinese poetic trope, visiting a sage in a remote retreat and finding him away. Li concentrates in consequence on what ‘is’  ‘there’, the landscape. The penultimate Li Shang-yin version appeared in eye-blink (London: Veer Books, 2010); the final version was written as a sixtieth-birthday gift for Robert Sheppard, and recognises some of his vocabulary and enthusiasms (e.g. blues harmonica, or ‘mouthharp’). ‘The cuckoo is a pretty bird, she warbles as she flies’ is an Appalachian folk-song,

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