Rebecca Nemser

Tao Chi was a prince who became a wan­der­ing Bud­dhist monk. His “Melan­choly Thoughts on the Hsiao and Hsiang Rivers,” cap­tures the mood of the end of autumn. A lone­ly fish­ing hut is half-hid­den by a few sparse trees; a flock of wild geese flies over a riv­er. The cal­lig­ra­phy echoes the flight of the birds and the quiver of the leaves. With­out under­stand­ing a word, we can feel the poetry.

Some­thing mag­i­cal hap­pened when the micro­phone was turned on: all my doubts dis­ap­peared. I devel­oped the habit of read­ing every­thing out loud, so my writ­ing became more nat­ur­al and tuned into my voice. I had a huge audi­ence. For the first time in my life, peo­ple were lis­ten­ing to what I had to say, and I loved it.