The Collected Poems of Xie Tiao

Xie Tiao, governor of Xuancheng, was the finest landscape poet of the Southern Dynasties, and Li Bai loved him so much that he climbed his tower and wrote poems in his honour. Xie Tiao's verse is clear, musical and bright with river light: departures at dawn, distant sails, mountains in rain, nights in a provincial office, and the melancholy of a courtier far from the capital. He was one of the creators of the new tonal poetry that led to the Tang regulated verse, and he died at thirty-five in a court intrigue. This complete new English translation gives his collected works, poems, rhapsodies and prose, with all verse set as verse. Names are given in modern pinyin, the verse is set as verse, and allusions are kept rather than explained away, so the book can be read with pleasure by anyone who loves poetry.