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Li Bai and Du Fu: China's drunken superstar poets

By Carrie Gracie BBC News, Beijing

China's two favourite poets were born 1,300 years ago, at the beginning of the 8th Century. The language has changed so little that they remain easy for modern Chinese people to read, and their themes are still relevant today - from friendship, love and landscape to the stench of political corruption.



Kaiser Kuo, a founder of China's first heavy-metal band, is probably one of the very few rock musicians, in any country, who draws inspiration from a poet born in 701AD.

"He was quite a drunkard... and writing some of his best poetry apparently, while completely inebriated. You know, he's wild and associated with a kind of unbridled revelry, and yeah that's part of why I love him," says Kuo.

He is talking about Li Bai, a poet born in Central Asia, who became a wandering superstar poet in China, known as "the fallen immortal" or "the immortal of wine".

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As a Chinese person living in America, far from home, Yuan particularly likes one poem by Li Bai, about the moon:

Moonlight in front of my bed

I took it for frost on the ground

I lift my head, gaze at the mountain moon

Lower it, and think of home.

"The moon in China has a special meaning. And when it's full, that represents the fullness and reunification of the family," says Yuan. "So that poem struck the deep core of my heart whenever I miss my family."

The moon also symbolises poetry and dreams, so it's fitting that it plays a role in Li Bai's death - the story is that he drowned in a river when he tried to embrace the moon's reflection.

"He was drunk, presumably," says translator Burton Watson.  "He was drunk a good deal of the time."

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my favorite li bai (or li po) poem:

The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter

While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
And we went on living in the village of Chokan:
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.

At fourteen I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.

At fifteen I stopped scowling,
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever and forever.
Why should I climb the look out?

At sixteen you departed,
You went into far Ku-to-en, by the river of swirling eddies,
And you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.

You dragged your feet when you went out.
By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me. I grow older.

If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you
As far as Cho-fu-Sa.
         
                                    -Li Po
                                    (translated by Ezra Pound)

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a du fu poem:

Reply to a Friend's Advice    

Leaving the Audience by the quiet corridors,
Stately and beautiful, we pass through the Palace gates,

Turning in different directions: you go to the West
With the Ministers of State.  I, otherwise.

On my side, the willow-twigs are fragile, greening.
You are struck by scarlet flowers over there.

Our separate ways!  You write so well, so kindly,
To caution, in vain, a garrulous old man.

                                                     -Du Fu
                                                     (translated by Carolyn Kizer


Although he wrote in all poetic forms, Du Fu is best known for his lÇœshi, a type of poem with strict constraints on form and content [as shown by this example]. (wikipedia)

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