Laozi—sometimes spelled in English as Lao Tzu—was an ancient Chinese thinker of profound global influence and the founder of the Daoist school of thought who lived during the late Spring and Autumn period (c. 580 BCE–?). According to legend, he was born in Ku County in the State of Chu (present-day Luyi, Henan, or Guoyang, Anhui). He once served as the royal archivist for the Zhou dynasty; later, witnessing the dynasty’s decline, he traveled westward to Hangu Pass. At the request of the Pass Warden, Yin Xi, he penned the Dao Te Jing (also known simply as Laozi), a text comprising over five thousand characters, before vanishing without a trace.
Laozi is, without a doubt, a key figure in the history of Chinese culture. For many in the West, he embodies the wisdom of ancient China and is held in high esteem. But who was Laozi? His life was not recorded with the same detail or concern for accuracy as that of Confucius. Indeed, early Chinese accounts of Laozi are largely the stuff of legend.
Only the Dao De Jing—the five-thousand-character text he left behind—stands as a physical testament to his existence and a cornerstone of Chinese philosophy. Daoism—born from the Dao De Jing—evolved into a distinct philosophical tradition, guiding the Chinese to free themselves from the mundane and to pursue individual spiritual transcendence.
In May, 2019, a number of poets, myself included, had the opportunity to visit Luyi in Zhoukou, Henan, the place traditionally identified as Laozi’s native home. As I ascended to Laojutai, an edifice erected in honor of the philosopher, I found myself pondering a number of questions: Who was Laozi? How did his astonishing ideas come into being? What in his day prompted him to pursue spiritual freedom and transcendence? My thoughts then turned to Bertolt Brecht, the German poet exiled during the Nazi era. James Joyce’s line “History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake,” also came to mind.
This was the genesis of the poem. I sought to part the mists of history in an attempt to reveal the truth—or, to put it another way, I set out to retell the story of Laozi from the vantage point of our own time. However, even I was somewhat surprised by the results. At the end of the poem, two men born in different eras — the ancient figure of Laozi and the exiled German poet, who listened to the “howl of his old country” on the radio—had astonishingly merged into a single entity.
Clearly, the poem points to the fate of independent thinkers—both historically and in the present day. This convergence is orchestrated by the poem, aligning precisely with my original intent in writing it. I wanted to bring Laozi and Brecht back into the present, making them our contemporaries; I wanted everything that unfolds within the poem to ultimately serve as a reflection of our own existential condition. Otherwise, I would not have written such a poem.
Fortunately, Brecht’s own life in exile—coupled with his profound interest in Laozi—provided the foundation for such associations and the imagery in this poem. During his exile in Denmark, Brecht penned a poem titled “Legend of the Origin of the Book Tao Te Ching on Laotze’s Road into Exile,” which is worth reading in the original German or in translation.
Commenting on some of my recent poetry, the Chinese critic Mu Ye observed: “These works constitute a dialogue with diverse minds, languages, and cultures; employing the historian’s perspective, the philosopher’s dialectic, and the poet’s interplay of ‘lightness and weight,’ they forge a poetics of simultaneity—a poetics of profound reflection.”
The concept of a “poetics of simultaneity” does indeed point to a certain experimental approach I have undertaken in my writing in recent years. I believe my poems are grounded in my own personal existence and the experienced realities of the present moment; yet, I also write from within a broader, more profound literary continuum. If I harbor any one ambition, it is to strive to become a poet capable of “speaking with the historical tongue of literature.”
This explains why, in some of my recent poems, I frequently employ techniques involving the overlapping of time and space, the juxtaposition of imagery, and the interweaving of intertextual references.
In fact, some poets have also taken note of this quality of “simultaneity” in my writing. In his review of At the Same Time, the poet Forrest Gander cited Ezra Pound’s dictum: “all times are contemporaneous.” Similarly, in a letter addressed to me, the poet Ruth Danon wrote: “I was so moved by your poems. They struck me as somehow completely ‘new,’ poems I had not read before that now seemed completely necessary to read….I am particularly struck by the beauty of the language, the subtlety of the politics that comes with deep emotion, and the honesty, intelligence, and beauty of the voice. But even more than those important realities I am struck by the cultural reach of the poems, so often connecting eastern and western poets within the same text. This seems so crucial in these very difficult times. Thank you for writing such necessary poems.”
Such observations are truly insightful. Indeed, for a poet, all times are contemporaneous. More importantly, a poet must also possess historical insight—as well as the “cultural reach” capable of traversing different languages and cultures. Only in this way can we, while delving deeply into the past, bring everything back into a poetic “present.”
