Complete Poems

The Complete Poems of Li Ch'ing-chao (1084-c. 1151) brings together for the first time in English translation all the surviving verse of China's greatest woman poet.

Written during the final years of the Sung Dynasty, with its political intrigues and collapse in the face of the Tatar invasions, her poems reveal an imaginative freshness, sensuous imagery, and satirical spirit often at odds with the decadent Confucian code of the day.

Poet-essayist Kenneth Rexroth (1905-1982) was a high-school dropout, disillusioned ex-Communist, pacifist, anarchist, rock-climber, critic and translator, mentor, Catholic-Buddhist spiritualist and a prominent figure of San Francisco's Beat scene. He is regarded as a central figure of the San Francisco Renaissance and is among the first American poets to explore traditional Japanese forms such as the haiku.