Reviewed by Leslie Friedman
Diving at the Moon
Poems by Kevin Gallagher
translated by Wang Ping
Spuyten Duyvil
June 2026, 142 pages, ISBN-13: 978-1969900129
This is a book of poems about China and an American academic and his family staying there. They seem to be a calm group. They experience new foods and uncover the vast history of China. Kevin Gallagher’s book begins:
Song of the Central Plain
Everything around us is so damn new.
I can’t see where this escalator goes.Wherever it goes it will never break.
It is hard to imagine the Mongolsstomping through this city in chariots
or the Yellow River flooding this place.My skiff can’t counter the tanker currents.
Beyond the haze the Qin Mountains still hold. (10)
The first of the book’s three sections focuses on the history, some connecting to their own lives. The poems describe the activities of the visitors – mother, father, son and daughter. The poems grew from historical places, Chinese leaders, wars, and Chinese people carrying on their lives. I do not know if he had been there before “everything was so damn new” because what he saw was so different compared to what he had seen on another trip? Or was it just that the modern urban buildings could be the same as some European city? I spent about a month, I do not remember exact dates, in China, in 1986. I was there to introduce American modern dance in Beijing, Shenyang, and Shanghai. It was the time when the people could stop wearing Mao uniforms. People were allowed to talk to me, not that I knew any Chinese, but a few would give English a try. As I type this I see a little girl walking toward me on a street wearing a big bow on her head. She still looks very happy as I see her again in my mind. I think the bow was pink.
I am fascinated by what and whom Gallagher met in the 8th century, CE. Du Fu (712-770) is still considered the greatest poet. Lin Zexu (1785-1850) was a government official who held the highest Confucian ideals, intelligence, and loyalty to the country and people. He tried to end the opium trade with England. His efforts failed. In case a reader forgot, there were two wars over opium. Smugglers sent it to England where many began the habit. Gallagher wrote this to salute Lin Zexu and the soldiers.
Lin Zexu
Ashen faces, weak breath, black teeth, and hollow,Our soldiers can no longer stand to fight
I’ve had all the pipes smashed to pieces
The opium poured out into open pools.We knead it with our feet into a stew
Then cover it with lime and salt for days.We open up the gate and let it flow
to sea. We pray for fish that die today. (40)
Lin Zexu wrote a letter to Queen Victoria asking her to stop the business. It was destroying lives in England; why would the Queen not stop it? China had banned opium, but England kept it going.
Gallagher brings attention to the historic status of women and girls in old China. The poem, The Chosen One, Du Fu, describes what happens to a child in her aunt’s house. I do not know if the name Du Fu is in the poem’s title because it is written “after” Du Fu’s writing and is possibly a scene in a poem by Du Fu.
The Chosen One, Du Fu
The famine whispered into my aunt’s ear
that she didn’t have room for every child.The child who sleeps in the southeast bedroom
is the child that hunger will keep alive.My aunt took her son from the southeast room.
She tucked me in to sleep there for the night.This is why I can always see the light.
I wish I had a chance to say good-bye. (24)
The preceding poem, Emperor Wu, can partially explain The Chosen One, Du Fu.
Emperor Wu
None of us maidens will get married
until the Emperor’s goat and buggyhave come through our village looking for love.
I hear he’s coming from Fergana Valley.I have a lute player in the background.
I let down my hair. I loosen my robe.I hope Emperor Wu’s goats are hungry.
I lay out bamboo and a pinch of salt. (22)
The “maiden” seems to be a bit older than the Chosen One who is a child.
Lady Guogua’s Spring Outing shows that young women in well placed families can have a happy day, if they pretend they are men.
Lady Guogua’s Spring Outing
We dress in the men’s riding clothes.
We smile as we wave to the Palace Guardand gallop into the forest. Some hide
the men’s clothes under the trees to ride.The rest decide to be men for a day.
Horses keep secrets. My rugun silk gownflows with my horse’s white tail and the clouds.
I return home with a gold Han headpiece.
A country wife is mentioned for her care for her husband in
Wild Goose Pagoda
From high in the Wild Goose Pagoda
You see nothing but miles of open field.Parades of millet with golden tassels wave
beside floating moats of green rice paddies.The barn was that pile of bricks and broken roof.
The farmer wore a big conical hat.His wife made it with her bare hands
to cover his face with shade every day. (30)
The wife works to care for her husband. She is certainly closer to her husband than the girl who could not say good-bye to her aunt as she is taken away.
The name of the poem, Wild Goose Pagoda, suggested I should find out if it is a particular place. It is significant. It was built in 652, during the Tang Dynasty. There is a smaller pagoda nearby also named the Wild Goose Pagoda so there is The Big Wild Goose Pagoda and a Wild Goose Pagoda. I appreciate the humorous name. The Buddhist monk, scholar, traveler, Xuanzang brought sutras, statues, Sanskrit scriptures from India. These are safely kept in the The Big Wild Goose Pagoda. It was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site, in 2014. The citation includes the network of Silk Roads stops.
Chanzu, means foot binding. It has been completely banned. Sadly, it lasted over centuries. It does not mean binding one’s foot like an Ace bandage. Every bone is broken. Toes were broken, forced upside down into what is left of the metatarsal. The bones would be broken-bound over many times because bones will try to heal. The possible cause of the insane tradition was a 10th century dancer who had small feet. She danced on a floor with a painting of a lotus. The emperor of the time thought the dancer was terrific. Persons close to the court with nothing to do caught sight of the dancer’s feet. This may be a myth. Starting at a very young age, 3 – 5 years, the girl will be in pain for life. She cannot walk properly, no running or jumping, The feet do not look like feet. Women die from the infections; no Neosporin available. Gallagher’s poem, “Chanzu”, explains one of the reasons to disfigure a child.
Chanzu
Your feet are wrapped in long strips of tight cloth
In ten years they become golden lilies.You will never run again. You will walk
Slow on your heels for the rest of your life.The pain is gone after you stop growing.
You learn the lotus steps of swift lightness.When you marry you will bring a fine price.
You will be followed by the peasant masses. (38)
The Mongols, Manchus, and Tibetans did not bind women’s feet, but by the Qing dynasty era, 1644-1912, about 40-50% of all Chinese women had it done. Of the Han upper class women 100% had bound feet. Fortunately, Manchu influence decreased the binding. It did not stop until the 20th century. There is another traditional way to mutilate girls and women. Female genital mutilation pleases men. It is torture and cruelty. Female relatives will insist for it because it “makes it right.” There is no health benefit. There are illnesses and deaths. In communities which sustain it, it lets all know who is Boss. Each hemisphere has its own way to disfigure women to be something else.
One more philosopher: Zhuangzi, or Zhuang Zhou, He lived in the 4th century, BC. That is, if he ever existed at all. Part of the philosophical world identifies the work, Zhuangzi, named for him and believe that he wrote – all or some parts of it. Taoism has a base of two written sources: Tao Te Ching and Zhuangzi. Zhuang Zhou was influenced by Laozi. He did not align with the officers of the King Wei of Chu in order to keep his personal freedom. Chapter 2 of the writing features a famous “butterfly passage.” This might have been written by a famous Taoist teacher, Chuang Tsu, and if it could have been written by Chuang Tsu, it is also likely that it was written by Zhuangzi. The butterfly in Gallagher’s poem takes up Zhuangzi. I do not know if this poem is based on writing from the 4th century BC, or “after” Zhuangzi, or perhaps Gallagher randomly chose the butterfly for his poem which is about Zhuangzi’s solipsistic problem, illustrated by the butterfly. Zhuangzi wonders about what is real and what is identity. Zhuangzi is on the horn of a dilemma: my existence is real only at the instant of self-awareness. However, an individual can be many identities formed into a working, whole being. Here is Gallagher’s poem.
Zhuangzi
I became a butterfly in my sleep.
I fluttered happy under the sunshine.I flew in the cloud skies, completely free.
I never felt so full of emptiness.When I woke up I became a new me.
I wasn’t sure which me I really was.Am I a me with a new clarity
Or that butterfly with a pair of wings? (32)
A scholar, Russell Kirkland, does not accept any evidence that Zhuangzi was real. That belief could simply underscore the solipsistic truth. Each of these philosophers can only know that herself or himself exists at the very moment, and they do not know the reality of someone or something else. Jean-Paul Sartre thought about self-awareness a lot. In his book Being and Nothingness (1943) he discusses self-awareness as a basic aspect of human existence. He took the position that it is only when the “Look” from another human makes us aware of ourselves. I do not know if Sartre knew about Zhuangzi or even thought about Zhuangzi’s thoughts. However, line 4 “I never felt so full of emptiness.” seems to match thoughts from Zhuangzi, 4th century BC China and Sartre 20th century CE France and Gallagher 21st century poet China/North America. It is possible that if one’s self is not engaged in one’s self that can undo one’s own reality. Or, we could all veg- out watching Gunsmoke and lose ourselves in 19th century Kansas.
This book is mostly written in blank verse. I experienced one rhyme in the poem “Lady Guogua’s Spring Outing”:
and gallop into the forest. Some hide
the men’s clothes under the trees to ride. (26)
Another rhyme is in the poem “Second Ring Road”.
You don’t idle under a Tapa Cloth tree.
You close the door and start singing to me. (114)
A third rhyme comes in “Songs for Kelly”:
You put your coffee on and give him his pill,
put on his leash, and take him up the hill. p 124
The leash is for Rexroth, their dog.
Did the author accidentally fall into tree-me and decide to keep it or did he choose these as experiments? Nothing wrong or right, in fact a surprise bit of entertainment. I may have missed one, but this is what I found.
This is poetry in iambic pentameter. Only a few poems walk away from it. The poem “Zhuangzi” has eight lines and each one counts ten. There are other poems that have lines that count nine, eleven, or even 12. Gallagher has an ability to keep the iambic pentameter going for many poems. I am curious if Gallagher figures a line of nine or an eleven is fine to be close to the ten, and stick to the meter? Or does he have a way to tag the meters?
Shakespeare wrote his late plays in iambic pentameter. He also broke lines when, for example, two characters are speaking and the exchange will add up to ten even though each character speaks only part of the ten. Playwrights who followed Shakespeare, John Webster and Thomas Middleton, used iambic pentameter but more loosely. Here is an example of either extra syllables, weaving them in to collect the extras, or just decide that the rhythm carries on so it does not matter.
Happy Birthday II
My kids were waking everyone up—
singing songs and shouting at the hotel.
Daddy, Daddy why don’t you want to play with me?
I said it was the middle of the night.
They didn’t understand so I gave up
And took them on an elevator ride.
My kids made the cooks in the kitchen happy.
We left wearing Chef’s hats and watermelon. (58)
The numbers went: nine syllables in line 1, ten in line 2, twelve in line 3, ten in line 4, nine in line 5, ten in line six, eleven in line 7, and eleven in line 8. Maybe the dash at the end of line 1 could serve as the tenth.
It could be possible to consider using one syllable of the twelve in line 3 and save the eleventh of that twelve on line three. Use it to even up line 5 so it would – in imaginary numbers – turn out to ten. The poem ends with two lines of elevens. Eleven has two lines anyway. There are places where the numbers are a lot looser. Gallagher may have a secret way to make the lines come out all tens, and there are many that do, but is seems more likely to let it roll. Or, change what the lines are saying.
The second section of the book has poems focused on the family’s life in China. There are more poems about the children and trying to adapt to normal activities as in “The China Daily is Talking to Me”:
The China Daily is talking to me
anywhere in the world in English—even right here in downtown Beijing.
I buy a paper version for a few kuaiafter I drop my son off at his school.
I read about the sun outside Beijing.I read about the NBA back home.
But something seems to be missing. (76)
When a person gets bad news about what is happening at home, it is impossible to absorb. In this poem, it is hard to figure out who is where.This is horrible no matter where one learns the worst.
September 11
I left you in Beijing on September 8th,
I had to paint the walls at our new place.A few days later the planes hit New York.
One of the planes lost Pete, Sue, and their baby.We found out that your brother was okay.
Our Chinese friends found you a place to stay—With VPN and TV. We got you home.
To the US by plane. To Boston by train. (52)
When this happened, I was in Chicago. It is not home but familiar and I stayed with a college friend. It took weeks to find a car to drive to California. Friends in Europe were marching with candles and weeping. Sadly, in a few weeks or more, the same friends found reasons to take back the candles. Gallagher had the pain of friends who were killed. This might have added to his difficulty: how to decide where to be.
The languages are boundaries like high hills to climb. Once reaching what looks like you’ve made it, try not to look down.
Chinese Lessons (excerpts)
My five year-old would get so excited
When the waiter would bring out a live fish.But he would plead with me to not speak Chinese.
‘They’ll know we are foreigners!’ he’d say. (68)
It is easy to fall in love with a new home city or have the fun of learning new stuff. If it is temporary but could be possible to stay, one does not know whether it is time to go or stay.
Looking for the Way (excerpts)
I didn’t see you make that funny face—
a response to mine in the first place.Was that the way I was supposed to go?
Can I be in both spaces at the same time? (84)
Does he mean Boston and Beijing all at once? That is one meaning of his way, but it is also The Way, Tao. Take one’s self to reach “harmonious existence.” There is a list of virtues: “effortless action, naturalness, simplicity and the three treasures: compassion, frugality, and humility.” These ways are in quotation marks because I found the same virtues in all the sources about the Tao. Realize “interconnectedness of all things” and be balanced, harmonious with one’s self and others. Early in this book there is a poem, The Way, p 46. Someone’s purse had been tossed into an area of bicycles. A person found the purse, took it to the hotel where the owner was staying. She returned the purse without leaving her name. That may be simple honesty which is part of the path.
Gallagher is connected to China. Having read his book, Diving at the Moon, I know that he loves the food but recognizes the danger of particulates in the air. He knows that native species have gone extinct. There were efforts to save the dolphins of Yangtze River. In 1990, there was one baji dolphin in captivity. It was cared for and nursed to health by Chinese medicine, but that was 1990. When Gallagher’s family was to move to Washington, D.C. his daughter “…when we were moving to Washington she replied, ‘do they speak English down there?’ From “Translation” (90), Maybe she is fully active in both places.
The Festival of Kites (excerpts)
I know that all the other mothers’ girls
are tied to their desks studying for the test.
Remember that Du Fu failed his exams.
Now he flies even higher than the kites. (106)
There are ideas and images of Chinese individuals working around the clock. Gallagher reports festive times in their stay. Early in the book, he included conversation between the two greatest poets Du Fu and Li Bai.
I have not read Du Fu and Li Bai, and yet this poem has the sound of Chinese poetry (in translation) and their confronting of real life.
Wine and Exile (excerpts)
….I was drowning in taverns
scribbling hundreds of poems on my sleeves.I woke up naked and my poems were gone!
My hair is white now, my ambitions undone—the world’s affairs are no longer worth mentioning.
Yet you still write of corrupt officials and starving soldiers…Have another swig of wine and laugh instead!
———
We’re too drunk to save the empire tonight.
The stars in the river are jewels of light.Words may preserve a man’s thoughts,
but can they fill a single empty belly?———-
what use is fame when children shiver?
The times are hard– in this generation, we are useless.Yet here we sit, two old fools by the water
watching the moon as if it were ours to keep. (36)
A fine aspect of this book is seeing the poems in Chinese on the opposite page. I do not know the characters, but the Chinese was like an active design. From time to time, I watched the characters and tried to match them with the English. They have movement in the characters and in the whole.
Whether Gallagher stays here or there, he and his family can keep a sound track to sleep near the whichever waters are near.
Asleep At Sea (excerpts)
All a slow chorus of low xylophones,
just calm enough to put us all to sleep.
About the reviewer: Writer and dancer/choreographer Leslie Friedman’s writing has been published in France, India, Poland, and the US. Her dancing and dances have won applause from audiences and critics on four continents. The US State Dept. co-sponsored her with host countries on historic “Firsts:” performance tours to Russia, China, Egypt, Poland, Hungary, Spain, England, many others. She received her History Ph.D. from Stanford, taught there, Vassar, Case Western Reserve, and left academia to write and dance full time. She received the Fulbright Lectureship to India and Senior Lectureship to Bulgaria. She published two natural history books: The Dancer’s Garden, a garden memoir, and The Story of Our Butterflies. She has written 6 plays awarded Best Play, Best Director, Best Actor. Audubon, Stories of the City (SF), and Berkeley Selected Poetry published her poems.Tupelo Quarterly and Compulsive Reader have published her reviews. The Wall Street Journal, San Jose Mercury News, St. Louis Journal of the Arts, others have published features, op-eds, letters. In Mountain View, CA, she is an activist to save trees and open space.