On Saturday, March 21, over 20 participants gathered at the Chinese Culture Connection for “One Poem, Many Voices” — a workshop that brought one ancient Chinese poem into conversation with five languages and a room full of people from all walks of life.
One Poem, Many Voices: A Multilingual Poetry Workshop at CCC
The Inspiration
The idea for this workshop grew out of a book called 19 Ways of Looking at Wang Wei, which places many different English translations of Wang Wei’s 鹿柴 (Deer Park) side by side. It got us thinking: what if, instead of comparing translations within one language, we could hear the same poem in entirely different languages? What would we notice? What would we feel? That question became the seed of this event.
Into the World of Wang Wei
Jingyuan Qian, Assistant Professor of Political Science and Asian Studies at Boston College, led us into the historical and philosophical world behind the poem. He situated 鹿柴 within the Tang Dynasty — a period that began as a golden age but was shattered by the An Lushan Rebellion in 755, after which many people grew disillusioned with politics and turned to religion and nature for inner peace. Wang Wei was among them: a court official born into a noble family, he eventually grew tired of political struggles, bought a rural home in the mountains outside the capital, and turned to Buddhism. Jingyuan then walked us through the poem itself — its structure as a classic five-character quatrain, and the Buddhist ideals woven into it: the sense that everything is temporary yet leaves traces, and that no fixed self inhabits the landscape, even as human presence echoes through it.
Five Languages, One Poem
Then came the heart of the event. Our facilitators each read 鹿柴 aloud in their language — Chinese, English, Arabic, French, and Spanish — while the audience followed along on multilingual handouts. Having five languages represented was essential to what we hoped to achieve: not just a comparison of word choices, but a chance to hear how entirely different linguistic traditions receive the same poem. The rhythm shifted, the imagery bent in new directions, and certain words carried cultural weight that simply had no equivalent elsewhere.
Panel Discussion
After the readings, our facilitators sat together at the front for a conversation moderated by Jingyuan. The discussion centered on the specific choices each translator made — why they chose one word over another, how the rhythm and sound of their language shaped the translation, and what approach they took in balancing fidelity to the original with the natural flow of their own tongue. The audience joined in with their own observations, and what emerged was a rich conversation.
Drawing Deer Park
For the final part of the afternoon, we handed out paper, crayons, and markers and invited everyone to draw the scene from the poem — the empty mountains, the returning sunlight filtering through deep forest, the green moss below. For about fifteen minutes, the room went quiet in a different way. Some people drew literal landscapes; others went abstract; a few chose to write instead.
When we came back together to share, it became clear that in a poem with no subject, people of different cultures, ages, and backgrounds had each found themselves in it. What moved us most was how many people connected the poem’s meditation on impermanence to their own everyday lives — the fleeting light through a window, the changing of seasons in a backyard, the small beauties in mundane moments that slip by unnoticed unless we pause to look. Wang Wei wrote about sunlight returning to moss over a thousand years ago, and here we were, in a room in Malden, remembering to notice.
Looking Ahead
We’re so grateful to everyone who made this afternoon possible: Jingyuan Qian for his illuminating introduction, and our wonderful facilitators Fatima Bourass (French), Mohammad Abutaha (Arabic), Xiran Liu (Spanish), and Lu Huang (English). Most of all, thank you to everyone who showed up — the turnout far exceeded our expectations, and your curiosity and openness made this event what it was.
“One Poem, Many Voices” was our first experiment in comparative poetry programming, and it certainly won’t be the last. Stay tuned for more from CCC — where culture, language, and community meet.
