Peking Dust, a poem by Wade Oliver, 1934

Posted: July 28th, 2017 | No Comments »

A short poem published in 1934….

 

Peking Dust

Of camphor wood and carved jade

The shy wings of this song are made.

*

Over the grey walls of Peking

They swoop and dart and soar and sing,

*

Leaving behind the dusty fret

Of hands that toil, and hearts that sweat

*

Their crimson drops of living blood

To carve from lifeless stone and wood

The lean flesh of their livelihood.

*

Wade Oliver

Though published in American newspapers in 1934 the poem’s origins may be earlier as, from what I can glean online, Oliver was at his most prolific in the 1920s and early 1930s. Poetry Quarterly magazine described Oliver as an ‘authentic’ whose work had a ‘high level of lyricism and imagery’.

I’m not sure if Oliver ever wrote another poem about China but he was seemingly favoured as a contributor to Harriet Monroe’s journal Poetry. Monroe’s interest in China combined with her professional relationships with Amy Lowell and Ezra Pound on Chinese poetry have been well documented and noted before on this blog via the work of various academics including Anne Witchard of Westminster University.

 

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