Of surprises: Vikram Seth, The Tang Dynasty and Picasso's pointillism

Mid-week poetic interlude (subscriber special)

Hello,

My lovely Global Jigsaw subscribers. It’s time for a little poetry.

Vikram Seth is one of my favourite poets. He is witty and pithy and he rhymes, which is a rarity is today’s free-form world.

This one is one of the best statements on religion, I think.

God’s Love  

God loves us all, I’m pleased to say –

Or those who love him anyway –

Or those who love him and are good.

Or so they say. Or so he should.

( From: All You Who Sleep Tonight)

*****

Seth is surprising in many ways, but one of the bigger surprises is that he is trained in classical Chinese. A short book of verse, Three Chinese Poets, is one of my favourites.

The poets he translates are Wang Wei, Li Bai and Du Fu – all from the Tang dynasty, a period in China of great cultural effervescence. Under Empress Wu (AD 624-705) poetry composition was included as a compulsory subject in the exams for the imperial service.