I. The central question

Q: What can we learn from Su Tungpo's poetry of protest?

A: In my opinion, "poetry of protest" is not an appropriate name. Su Tungpo wrote some poetry to criticized the politician and their policies, but it was a little over to called those poetry "protest", use "satire" maybe better. Actually, satire poetry was an old tradition in ancient Chinese literature, such as Shijing in the early Qin dynasty and Bai Juyi's singable poetry in the Tang dynasty. Besides, Su Tungpo's poetry was not just about criticizing, he also showed us the life of peasants. From his poetry, we could know Su Tungpo better, his life was not only full of happiness, but also filled by sorrow and mawkishness.

II. The sentence

1. No one man reflected the feelings of his people more fully than Su Tungpo, and it was given to him to put into songs and words of beauty more richly and more fully what the other writes were trying to express.

put into songs and words of beauty more richy and more fully  这一句的用词很简单，但长句子很有感染力，“以一种更丰富而充分的方式展现诗歌之美”。

2. Su Tungpo was hardly the kind of man to deny that he was happy when he was, or to pretend that he was not.

“快乐时难以否认，不快乐时也难以掩饰”。"hardly the kind of" 这个短语十分有趣

3. The Yellow Tower was so called because of a belief in the old Chinese cosmogony.

so called   所谓的

cosmogony  宇宙进化论

4. 两个章节的首句都非常有意思：

It is well to remember that even Hangchow was not all lotus and peonies.

Even for a genius like Su Tungpo, life began at forty.

两个首句都非常符合Zinsser在On Writing Well中指出的关于beginning的原则，简短、第一时间里抓住读者。前一句用比喻，杭州城里不仅有莲花与牡丹，当然，苏东坡笔下也并非仅有风花雪月。而第二句颇有些令人吃惊，苏东坡的人生从四十岁才开始，那么之前他少年中进士呢？苏东坡并非大器晚成，何出此言呢？而接下来的文章正是说明苏东坡的为官生涯。