Minnesota poet Jim Lenfesty seeks source of 1400-year-old poems - and finds himself

Grants | NHPRC | Programs | MPR News Feature | Topics | Arts & Culture | Special Collections | Minnesota Books and Authors | Types | Interviews | Legacy Project Remote Work (2020-2021) | Poems, Poets, and Poetry | Reading |
September 22, 2014
Cathy Wurzer - Host, Jim Bickal - Producer, Eugene Cha - Associate Producer, Euan Kerr - Editor and Reporter, Jim Lenfestey - Interviewee and Reader
Listen: Minnesota Poet seeks source of 1400 year old poems - and finds himself
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Poetry has long fascinated former Star Tribune editorial board member Jim Lenfestey, both as a reader and a writer. Back in 1970 a bookseller gave him a collection of poems by Han Shan, or Cold Mountain, a Chinese poet who lived 1400 years ago.

Lenfestey fell in love with the poems, and remarkably found himself still reading them decades later. Lenfestey's new book "Seeking the Cave" is a memoir about how his love of Han Shan's work turned into a journey halfway around the world seeking the cave where legend says the poet lived.

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