David Hinton, Poet, Essayist and Translator of Chinese Poetry, to Speak at The Gunnery

The community is welcome to attend a lecture featuring David Hinton, poet, essayist and award-winning translator of classical Chinese poetry and philosophy, in the Leo and Frances Bretter Student Center at The Gunnery on Thursday, November 30 at 1 p.m. Admission is free.

A frequent visitor to The Gunnery since 2009, Hinton received an MFA in poetry from Cornell University and has been a recipient of multiple fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, as well as a Guggenheim fellowship and a fellowship from the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers.

He has been honored for his Chinese poetry translations with the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation and the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award from the Academy of American Poets. In awarding him the Thornton Wilder Prize for Lifetime Achievement, the American Academy of Arts and Letters said: “David Hinton is the best English language translator of classic Chinese poetry we have, and have had for decades. The translations read in English as though they were written in it originally. A magician’s grace glows through all of the poems, a grace and ease uncommonly found, uncommonly masterful.”

On his website, Hinton notes that the body of work he has produced as a writer and translator has focused on “exploring the weave of consciousness and landscape. This exploration is informed throughout by the insights of ancient Chinese culture.” Over the last decade, Hinton has “moved toward writing that is original in a more traditional sense: poetry and lyrical/philosophical essays,” his website says.

His latest books include, “The Wilds of Poetry: Adventures in Mind and Landscape,” published in July by Shambhala, and “Existence: A Story,” in which Hinton “stands before a single landscape painting—discovering there the wondrous story of existence, and as part of that story, the magical nature of consciousness.” His translation, “No-way Gateway, the Original Wu-men Kuan,” is due in February 2018, followed by a new volume of poems in June 2018 titled, “Desert.”

At The Gunnery, Hinton will be speaking to classes taught by Dr. Nicholas Benson, a member of the English faculty who has published translations of classical Italian poetry and was the recipient of a translation fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. For more information, please call (860) 868-7334.