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.



Wednesday, January 3, 2018

聖詠新繹兩首


--漢樂逸撰,蘇桂枝譯

聖詠新繹第23

視物者知我
識我缺如

在曠野雜叢中
輕吟着安詳
在川流不息裏
反照着平靜

歷粗礦似真理
視吾心一體:
我屬於祂

儘管行走幽谷
面臨死亡憧影
我不畏分離
因祢知我

承襲祢之路
如豐盛宴席
身陷詆譭時刻
不棄關注
昂我首
啓我脣

我終日真摯
持光而行

了然有生之日
 蒙祢永居於此



聖詠新繹第27

讓我的恐懼形成祢的光:
讓我的顫慄是祢出現的能量。

有如被強大敵軍圍繞
我心,孤自等候。

我唯一嚮往之事:
見我雙眼
呈現祢的潔美。

願在我圍牆般焦慮中
找到祢寓所,
願在我盲目找尋中
感到祢祭壇微光。

願在我呼籲中
聽到祢聖名。

有如我盼望祢之神色:
注視我。

我本應已消逝
然期望浩大:
願生前祢還見到我。