Great Regulars: For Valentine's Day, consider Ezra Pound's tender rendition

of Li T'ai Po's 8th-century poem "The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter." (I memorized this in junior high while mooning behind an oblivious boy's blond and buzz-cut scalp.) Pound's famously fouled-up translation galled Chinese scholars. I'm told it contains misreadings akin to finding "flower" in the word "flour." But he freed the poem from antique verse that rocked through pentameter like a wild pony. Look at how W.J.B. Fletcher transformed Li Po's delicacy into bad Longfellow:

When first o'er maiden brows my hair I tied,

from Mary Karr: The Washington Post: Poet's Choice

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