Warm Mountain Poems

Poems of stillness and spirit

Read more Warm Mountain poems here

I always make fun of pen names, but if I had to pick a pen name, it would be Warm Mountain. I’ve written poems on or below warm Desert mountains for my entire life, and when I came across my first Chinese Wilderness poet, Cold Mountain, it changed my life. It felt like he spoke directly to the budding hermit inside of me, and my soul knew I was reading the work of an awakened individual.

Cold Mountain (Han Shan) lived in Southeast China in the 8th century. We have almost no biographical information about him, and most of his poems were recovered from the rocks and trees he wrote them on.

Han Shan named himself after the mountain he inhabited (Cold Mountain), which can create confusion when you read him.

In the post below, I will post three of my translations of Cold Mountain. I will also include one of my own. However, I have changed the setting of the poems from cold Chinese mountains to the Desert of the American Southwest. I also of course, added some mystical beauty to the poems :)

Writers sometimes ask me how they can get into nature more and start writing poetry like the Chinese Wilderness poets.

Well, here is what Cold Mountain would say!