Oberlin College Press

FIVE T'ANG POETS:

Wang Wei, Li Po, Tu Fu, Li Ho, Li Shang-yin (translated by David Young)

Paper $15.95 (ISBN 0-932440-55-X)

This expanded and updated version of one of our most popular titles takes in a fifth master, the difficult love poet Li Shang-yin, who lived in the later years of the T'ang dynasty (eighth and ninth centuries A.D.). Taken together, the selections from the five poets represented here constitute some of the greatest lyric poetry ever written.

"Phenomenal. Among a half-dozen publications of poetry which, since 1980, have given me the greatest delight to reread."
--Parnassus

WEARY NIGHT

The bamboos creak with cold
I lie awake

the moon above the plain
fills one side of my garden

what makes this heavy dew?
countless tiny drops

scattered stars
come and go without warning

fireflies signal
back and forth in the dark

birds roosting near the creek
call softly to each other

ten thousand instances of war!
lost in it, awed by it

I sit up looking out
as the clear night wheels past.

--Tu Fu
translated by David Young