If a Mountain Lion Could Sing

If a Mountain Lion Could Sing stands as the first major English translation of poems written by China’s greatest lyric poet, Xin Qiji.Red Pine gathers and translates over 100 poems by China's greatest lyric poet, Xin Qiji, in his latest bilingual collection, If a Mountain Lion Could Sing. Visiting the very places where Xin composed his stanzas—the cassia trees of the Wu River, houseboats along the Yangzi, mountain monasteries—and paying respects at the poet’s grave, Red Pine makes a spiritual and physical exercise of translation. In his skilled hands, we see the unique, multifaceted nature of Xin unfold—rebel warrior, patriot, human. Political themes and ideas of intimacy cross paths, moving between the voices of statesman and lover. Written over 800 years ago, and to melodies since lost, Xin’s verses still leap across centuries to relay the universal concepts of solitude, duty, youth, aging, and nostalgia. Though “true mirrors are hard to come by,” Xin’s poems serve as haunting reflections of a man whose voice of “heroic abandon” still resonates today.