Brief bio sketch

Lloyd Haft (1946- ) was born in Sheboygan, Wisconsin USA and lived as a boy in Wisconsin, Louisiana and Kansas. In 1968 he graduated from Harvard College and went to Leiden, The Netherlands for graduate study in Chinese (M. A. 1973, Ph. D. 1981). From 1973 to 2004 he taught Chinese language and literature, mostly poetry, at Leiden. His sinological publications include Pien Chih-lin: A Study in Modern Chinese Poetry (1983/2011; published in Chinese translation as 发现卞之琳: 一位西方学者的探索之旅 in 2010) and A Guide to Chinese Literature (with Wilt Idema, 1997). His liberal modern Dutch reading of Laozi's Daode jing was published as Lau-tze's vele wegen by Synthese in September 2017. His newest books in English are translations: Herman Gorter: Selected Poems (Arimei Books, 2021), Zhou Mengdie: 41 Poems (Azoth Books, 2022), and Totally White Room (Poems by Gerrit Kouwenaar, Holland Park Press, 2023). He has translated extensively into English from the Dutch of Herman Gorter, Gerrit Kouwenaar, and Willem Hussem, and from the Chinese of various poets including Lo Fu, Yang Lingye, Bian Zhilin and Zhou Mengdie.



Since the 1980s he has also been active as a poet writing in Dutch and English. He was awarded the Jan Campert Prize for his 1993 bilingual volume Atlantis and the Ida Gerhardt Prize for his 2003 Dutch free-verse readings of the Psalms (republished by Uitgeverij Vesuvius in 2011). His newest books of poetry in Dutch are Intocht (Introit) and Beluisteringen (Soundings), published by Uitgeverij Van Warven in November 2023.



After early retirement in 2004, for a number of years Lloyd Haft spent much of his time in Taiwan with his wife Katie Su. In June 2019 he was named a Distinguished Alumnus of National Taiwan Normal University. In addition to writing and translating, his interests include Song-dynasty philosophy and tai chi. For many years he sang in the choir of a Roman Catholic church of the Eastern Rite in The Hague.



Thursday, February 10, 2011

以此齋詩譜二首


漢樂逸    陳建龍

(1) 釣者

水流受阻之處
有魚一尾粼粼而動
我看見,我領受
牽引,憑一縷釣絲

石砥中流之處
激出水聲湍湍
底流翻騰而上
化為一陣昇華

我們卻僅能於隱隱之中
窺見其斷續、屈曲
其後,隱隱沒入雨中。
有這麼一道水流

升騰自截然不同的河川
潺潺如歌,引視線為絲。
此處,我的臉孔粼粼而動
襯映一片寒冷浮現

傍砥流之石。沒入霧靄之際
我斷續屈曲的釣絲,或說是臂膀
霎時可見
領受在眼前。


(2) 臨急湍釣風

是否,我還能覓得流水-
再度,越重重記憶之谷
那挾光而來的河?
山巒綿延

巖岩成鏈,拔地
攔空,沉寂的
堵堵屏障,曾經流水
曾經漣漪,曾經粼粼如歌

曾有許多人
佇立於此,據地
安身,不落高遠的罅隙
不落曳光的裂縫

此地僅存
涓滴低語:
赤裸的存在  不道未來
不詠過去

此地曾佇立,彼等釣風之人
如今不見水波,僅餘
臨去留下之鉤,僅餘
水中,鐵痕血跡


荷語原文2005年登載於荷蘭Querido出版社之《Formosa,福爾摩沙》。