DAVID HINTON
Word count: 99
Paragraphs: 9
Thought gone
dark needs
nothing more of it-
self, needs dark
alone woven ink-
black through blackened
light. It’s an ancient
tool, this gathering—
basket of shadow, and it
glistens still with
use. Hummingbird’s
quick glint, crow’s winged
fleck of
night: these last
few things
slip vanishing
through, leaving
again this dark
harvest of origins.
David Hinton
DAVID HINTON’s many translations of classical Chinese poetry have earned wide acclaim for their ability to feel contemporary while also conveying the texture and density of the originals. He is also the first translator in more than a century to translate the five seminal masterworks of Chinese philosophy: I Ching, Tao Te Ching, Chuang Tzu, Analects, and Mencius. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Humanities and has won the Landon Translation Award, the PEN Translation Award, and most recently, the Thornton Wilder Award for lifetime achievement from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.