SOURCE: "Wang Wei and Saigyo: Two Buddhist Mountain Poets," in American Poetry Review, Vol. 22, No. 2, March/April, 1993, pp. 45-8.

In the following excerpt, Hamill explores the Buddhist influences on Wang Wei's poetry and empahsizes the impact classical T'ang dynasy poetry has had on modern American poetry.

Perhaps no aspect of classical Chinese poetry in translation has touched contemporary American verse more deeply than the "nature poery" of the T'ang dynasty. From the three hundred-odd poems of Cold Mountain (Han Shan), poems that often fall into a kind of Buddhist doggerel, to the almost selfless poems of Wang Wei, the western poet has been drawn to the evocative and descriptive powers of the ancient Chinese poet writing alone in his hermitage deep in the mountains.

While the translations by Gary Snyder, Burton Watson, and Red Pine have brought a large audience to Han Shan, Wang Wei has generally fared...