A crooked road brought Bill Porter to the world of Chinese poetry translation.

At the end of his military stint in Germany, Porter was called in, to see his Sergeant Major.

“He told me that I was the worst soldier he’d ever seen in his 30 years in the Army. I said, ‘thank you Sir.’”

His exposure to the German language whet his appetite so he applied for a fellowship at Columbia University.

“I had just read a book, ‘The Way of Zen’ by Alan Watts and just on a whim, I wrote the word, ‘Chinese’ on the application and they awarded me a four-year fellowship to Columbia.”

While at Columbia, he met a monk in Chinatown and started meditating with him.

“He was such an impressive man, a Buddhist monk and I wanted to be like him.” So after two years at Columbia, Porter quit and went to live in a monastery in Taiwan. He stayed in Taiwan for twenty years living a semi-hermitic life in monasteries and on a mountain outside of Taipei.

His life as a translator began when the abbot of his first monastery gave him the poems of Hanshan (Cold Mountain).

“You know, I could translate these,” he recalled.

This became his first book published by Copper Canyon, “The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain.”

As he turned his attentions to other poets and began translating them, Porter noticed something.

“I would do research into who were the great teachers in China, whether Buddhists, Taoist or Confucians — every one of those people was a hermit at one time in their life.

“Hermits in our country are misanthropes, people who want to leave society and be left alone,” he explained, “the Chinese hermit is one of the most important parts of society. But they're not going into the mountains to stay. They're coming back down to help other people. One of the things they're returning with is their own voice, and they were listened to as a source of wisdom and guidance. They became this most revered of all classes of Chinese society.”

Earlier this year, the Chinese government honored Bill with its Special Book Award for his significant contributions to Chinese culture.

Fame as a translator is not the only fruit of Bill’s adventures in China. While living in Taiwan, he met his wife Ku Lien-chang. They moved to Port Townsend in 1992, where the couple raised their two kids and reside today. Porter’s quest for translations never ends. He heads to China soon to dance with another poet dead for a thousand years.

Port Townsend filmmakers Ward Serrill and Rocky Friedman return to the Rose Theatre Friday, October 27 for the world premiere of their new film, “Dancing with the Dead: Red Pine and the Art of Translation.” Tickets are now on sale. Opening night tickets, at $20, include a Q&A with director Serrill, a reading by Red Pine, a surprise musical guest, and a signed mini version of the movie poster for all attendees.

Filmmaker explains how
his work came to be

For Director Ward Serrill it was a crooked path coming full circle.

“The film began for me when I was 15 and I was introduced to taoism which is the first thing I ever came across that made sense to me, even thou its based on paradox. The direct path is the crooked one, that kind of thing. So when Rocky brought Bill Porter’s story to me, it felt like the crooked path had come full circle,” Serrill told The Leader.

“Here was a film,” continues Serrill, “about Zen poetry, the Tao and Chinese mountain hermits that spoke directly to me. I lived in near solitude in the wilds of Alaska for many years, so I feel a kinship with hermits, especially of the Chinese persuasion, who enter the hills for spiritual enlightenment.”

Porter, who goes by the pen name Red Pine, is a renowned translator of ancient Chinese poetry who lives in Port Townsend. He has published over thirty books. His quest to find hermits in the Zhongnan Mountains reignited a movement in China to seek enlightenment through poetry and mountain solitude.

“Bill is responsible for rediscovering the tradition of Chinese mountain hermits. He’s a great story teller and as a filmmaker, that helps me a lot. He’s like China’s Jack Kerouac. He has inspired young people to go to the hills in pursuit of spiritual enlightenment,” Serrill said of his film’s subject.

At a time when relations between China and the U.S. are fraught with tension, Bill Porter stands as a cultural bridge between the two cultures. His translations sell hundreds of thousands of copies in China and he is treated as a celebrity there.

“Among Bill’s charms is that he’s a great storyteller, which to a filmmaker is pure gold,” added Serrill.

“So one of the fortunate challenges in telling this story was that for many of Bill’s tales there were no underlying assets – photographs or videos. The film called out for innovative use of animation. I reached out to longtime collaborator Drew Christie, from Whidbey Island, who produced over twelve animations utilizing four different styles in the process.”

Porter’s history is a dichotomy.

“His dad was a bank robber in the 1920s and he got shot up in a robbery on October 29, 1926 when they tried to rob a bank in Detroit. There was a big shootout and his dad’s kneecap was blown off. The getaway driver later taught his dad the hotel business and he was very successful so Bill had a gilded childhood among Hollywood people,” Serrill explained.

Porter, he said, eventually turned away from the “American devotion to materialism to pursue his passion for buddhism.”

Thus begins Porter’s search for the hermit tradition of spending time alone - going into the mountains so one might return in order to give something back to society.

“Bill does not do his work in libraries. He goes to where the poet lives, where the poet goes into his grave so he can more understand the relationship. If this was a story about a guy that goes into a library, I don’t have much of a film,” Serrill admitted.

Porter said he believes translation may be not just a great literary form but the ultimate one.

As with their previous film (The Bowmakers, 2019), Dancing with the Dead is a unique Port Townsend story that resonates around the world. It was entirely funded and produced within 50 miles of Port Townsend.