The Wine Cup

<p class=ql-align-justify>Sonnet-sequences have a history of nearly 1000 years. But a sequence of villanelles? Here perhaps for the first time ever in English is a suite of twenty-four of them. The delicate instrument of the villanelle is played lightly and gently to salute Tao Yuanming Chinese poet Daoist recluse and a great Lord of Wine who lived more than 1500 years ago.</p><p class=ql-align-justify><br></p><p class=ql-align-justify><br></p><p class=ql-align-justify>In these beautiful lucid poems Richard Berengarten exploits the scope of the villanelle in a profound engagement with nature and mortality in which past present and future voices resonate across East and West. Accompanied by 'old friends' he fills the wine jug and considers existential realities of love and loss imagination and creativity where his thought and form are testimony to a life-long intimacy with Daoism and the <em>I Ching</em>. -Lucy Hamilton</p><p class=ql-align-justify><br></p><p class=ql-align-justify><br></p><p class=ql-align-justify>Poetry inspired by wine is almost a genre in Chinese literature. The Chinese pastoral poet Tao Yuanming (365?-427) pioneers what may be called 'alcoholyricism'. Berengarten's drinking songs are not just a fitting tribute to and admirable emulation of Tao Yuanming's poetic theme and art but their evocation of idyllic rural scenes and deep reflections on humanity's relation to nature entitles him to be called a Tao Yuanming in English garb. -Ming Dong Gu</p><p class=ql-align-justify><br></p><p class=ql-align-justify><br></p><p class=ql-align-justify>There is an elegiac if not valedictory tone abroad and at home in these beautiful poems. We are in the aural territory of an ageing song-bird - the most musical of our older poets - gathering his forces to sing like Shakespeare's lark at heaven's gate. He is our host and guest as we age along with him. -Anthony Rudolf</p><p class=ql-align-justify><br></p>