Day 16: Li Po

Li Po, or Li Bai, was a wandering poet of China, native of Sichaun. He was born in 701 and died in 762. It is said that he used to be good in martial arts, and before he reached his twenties, he had killed several men. When he was in his twenties, he traveled down the Yangtze River, met his wife, and spent the rest of his life as a traveling poet. Maybe I'll be inspired like Li Po with my own poetry.

Li Po was the major Chinese poet during the Tang Dynasty,and was the poet for the emperor. It is believed that Li Po drowned while drunkenly leaning from a boat to embrace the moon's reflection on the water. Most scholars believe he died from cirrhosis of the liver or from mercury poisoning due to Taoist longevity elixirs.

There's a great movie series on Youtube that goes more in depth on the man behind Li Po:

Here's an example of his poetry:

On a Picture Screen

Whence these twelve peaks of Wu-shan!

Have they flown into the gorgeous screen

From heaven's one corner?

Ah, those lonely pines murmuring in the wind!

Those palaces of Yang-tai, hovering over there—

Oh, the melancholy of it!—

Where the jeweled couch of the king

With brocade covers is desolate,—

His elfin maid voluptuously fair

Still haunting them in vain!

Here a few feet

Seem a thousand miles.

The craggy walls glisten blue and red,

A piece of dazzling embroidery.

How green those distant trees are

Round the river strait of Ching-men!

And those ships—they go on,

Floating on the waters of Pa.

The water sings over the rocks

Between countless hills

Of shining mist and lustrous grass.

How many years since these valley flowers bloomed

To smile in the sun?

And that man traveling on the river,

Does he not for ages hear the monkeys screaming?

Whoever looks on this,

Loses himself in eternity;

And entering the sacred mountains of Sung,

He will dream among the resplendent clouds.

Li Po was not just a famous poet in China, but an inspiration to poets everywhere, particularly Ezra Pound. As a writer, I feel that he heavily contributed to poetry although in at least America he is not well known amongst my peers.

Moos'n Out.