Chinese Poets
Poets are listed here in order of appearance.
LAO TZU (4th century BCE) is “The Old Master,” the legendary grandfather of Taoism. His masterpiece, Tao Te Ching, or “Classic of the Way and Its Virtue,” is often referred to as “The Five Thousand Word Classic.”
T’AO CH’IEN (365–427), also called T’ao Yuan-ming, was born in Kiangsi province and spent his life as a sometimes impoverished farmer. His poetry reflects the complete fusion of Confucian conviction and Taoist spirituality. Although his poetry remained almost unknown during his lifetime, he came to be venerated as “the grandfather of poetry” by the generations that followed.
HSIEH LING-YUN (385–433), who became the Duke of K’ang-lo, was one of the most influential poets in Chinese history, bringing Buddhist practice and insight to classical “nature poetry,” a term he would have disliked.
HUI YUNG (4th–5th century) was one of the early monk-poet translators who introduced Taoist terminology into translations of the sutras. He emphasized meditation and encouraged the lay community to take up sitting practice and to socialize with literate monks.
WANG FAN-CHIH (590–660) is a mystery. There are two extant manuscripts attributed to “Wang, Buddhist Devotee,” which is what his name means. One of them was clearly composed by a witty Zen teacher, and these poems were extremely popular and influential during the T’ang dynasty.
HSUAN CHUEH (665–713) was a student of T’ien-t’ai Buddhism, then of Hui Neng, whom he sought out in the Pao-lin Monastery. He is said to have mastered “walking, standing, sitting and lying meditation,” and his long Cheng Tao Ko, from which these poems are taken, is studied as scripture.
HAN SHAN (8th century) was a Zen tramp who scribbled poems on his cave wall and on rocks and trees around temples, shrines, and monasteries in the T’ien-t’ai Mountain region of east central China. While it is not as rough as Wang Fan-chih’s poetry, the polite upper class found Han Shan’s straightforward style (majen, tajen, “cursing and hitting people”) about to be as “refreshing” as being whacked by the master’s stick in the meditation hall. His poetry was—and is—countercultural. It is his direct, unpolished manner that has endeared him to centuries of readers.
SHIH TE (ca. 730). “The Shih Te Poems” are a collection of the earliest poems written by a variety of poets, some better than others, in the style of Han Shan. In the early T’ang, most imitators preferred to write under the pseudonym Shih Te, “The Foundling.” By the Sung dynasty, all kinds of poets wrote openly “in the manner of Han Shan.”
MENG HAO-JAN (689–740) was born in Hupeh province and spent his first forty years on remote Lu-men Shan, “Deer Gate Mountain,” after failing to pass examination for holding office. His poems are often compared with those of his friends, Wang Wei and Wang Ch’ang-ling. All three sought the contemplative qualities of rural life in simple, direct syntax. He is a strong link in the long chain of Zen poets being at one with nature, and was greatly admired by Li Po and Tu Fu.
WANG CH’ANG-LING (689–756) was, during his lifetime, considered the “supreme poet of the empire,” and enjoyed far greater popularity than Li Po or other well well-known poets of his time. His quatrains in seven character lines were particularly famous. After his death during the An Lu-shan Rebellion, he was mourned by all the poets and by many eminent Taoist and Buddhist clerics.
LI PO (701–761) is China’s most famous poet. Imprisoned as a traitor, pardoned, exiled, celebrated, granted amnesty, he lived on the edge, a panhandler, epic drinker, and self-promoter par excellence. He claimed never to have revised a line in his poems, and practiced zazen. Legend says he drowned in exile, trying to embrace the reflection of the moon in a river.
WANG WEI (701–761) was perhaps China’s first great publicly celebrated Buddhist poet. Imprisoned at the Bodhi Temple in the capital city, Chang-an, during the An Lu-shan Rebellion, he later excelled as a courtier and was admired as a poet, landscape painter, and musician. His “Wang River Poems” are among the masterpieces of his age. He died while serving in the State Department.
CH’ANG CHIEN (708–765?) passed the coveted civil service examinations, then rejected the opportunity to accept a comfortable position in the Confucian bureaucracy, choosing instead a reclusive life. He wrote about the frontier regions as well as along Buddhist and Taoist themes.
LIU CH’ANG-CH’ING (ca. 710–785?) passed the civil service examinations in 733 and held several middle-level posts before fleeing central China during the An Lu-shan Rebellion. Only later did he emerge as one of the best poets of the generation following Tu Fu, Wang Wei, and Li Po.
TU FU (712–770), the “Poetry Sage” (shih sheng), was born to a family fallen from nobility. Failing his civil service examinations, he spent years as a wanderer, living in poverty, but a model of Confucian conduct. He drew inspiration from the suffering he observed in his travels, much of it the result of ruthless inscription and unfair taxation. His poetry was largely unacknowledged in his lifetime, and only 1,554 of his ten thousand poems survive.
CH’IEN CH’I (722–780?) was regarded as among the best of the post–An Lu-shan Rebellion poets, and was favorably compared to Wang Wei.
CHIAO JAN (730–799), was a distant relative of Hsieh Ling-yun, and became one of the first recognized Ch’an-master poets and was a noted literary critic. He gave up writing poetry when he felt that his attachment to it stood between himself and enlightenment.
WEI YING-WU (736–830) served in the Imperial Guard before becoming a provincial official celebrated for his generous patronage of poets. His poems reflect the influence of T’ao Ch’ien and Wang Wei.
CHANG CHI (768–830) spent a lifetime in poverty, but, with the literary patronage of Han Yu and others, wrote many poems in the “folk song style,” denouncing social injustice, as well as elegies and meditative poems.
PO CHU-I (772–846) is, along with Tu Fu, Wang Wei, and Li Po, among the best known of all Chinese poets in the West. He was courageous in criticizing social injustice and was revered for his loyalty to friends. Like many of his contemporaries, he spent years in exile, but eventually achieved a high position in the court and adopted the Buddhist name “Lay Buddhist of Fragrant Mountain.” He wrote about ten thousand poems.
LIU TSUNG-YUAN (773–819) was born and lived in the capital city of Ch’ang-an, but for fifteen years he spent in exile in the south.
TU MU (803–852) claimed to have earned a reputation for hanging around courtesans’ quarters, but was in fact a popular poet who was also governor of four districts. He lived happily in Hangchow at the mouth of the Yangtze River, where he was called “Little Tu” to distinguish him from Tu Fu.
WU PEN (Chia Tao) (779–843) was raised in a monastery and began adult life as a Ch’an monk with a Buddhist name. He was “discovered” by the poet and Confucian official Han Yu, reportedly arguing with himself over a verb in a poem. Under Han Yu’s patronage, as Chia Tao, he left monastic life to become a government official, as Ch’an advocates, using “efficacious means” for working for the salvation of all sentient beings. He continued to be a great Zen poet.
KUAN HSIU (832–912) was regarded by his contemporaries as the greatest poet of the last years of the T’ang dynasty. An innovative portrait painter as well, he was a master technician in verse forms ranging from the four-character lines of his “Poetry Classic” to the varying measures of the newly popular tz’u poetry in which new lyrics were written to older tunes.
ANONYMOUS SUNG DYNASTY NUN: There are very few poems by women in the Ch’an collections, and most are, like this one, anonymous.
SU TUNG-P’O (1037–1101), also called Su Shih, was deeply schooled in Taoism before becoming a devoted student of Zen. He suffered several banishments, but was renowned as a compassionate and benevolent administrator in the provinces. He is generally considered to be the greatest poet of the Sung dynasty.
HUNG-CHIH CHENG-CHUEH (1090–1157) was able to recite the Five Confucian Classics by memory before he entered a monastery at age eleven, where he led an active religious life.
YUAN MEI (1716–1798) was probably the most widely read poet of the Ch’ing dynasty. His writing clearly shows how deeply the Zen worldview had penetrated Chinese society by the time of the final traditional dynasty. He was a good Confucian official until he resigned over a conflict that threatened to compromise his principles. He practiced zazen, made pilgrimages to Buddhists sites, and wrote poetry in praise of the world as it is and as it may become.
CHING AN (1851–1912) was said to have made up poems even before he learned to write. Monastically educated, he mocked the “worldly attachment” that poetry seemed, paradoxically, to represent. Late in life he was unsuccessful in serving the monasteries of east central China in negotiations with the new “republic” in Peking as he struggled to preserve the great Buddhist heritage they represented.
PO CHING (SU MAN-SHU) (1884–1918), probably better known as Su Man-shu, was the son of a Cantonese merchant and a Japanese woman. He traveled widely, including teaching in Indonesia, before settling back in China. He bought—or perhaps stole—his monk’s license. Nevertheless, as a famous secular romantic poet, he promoted Buddhism and began the first modern Sanskrit grammar in Chinese.
Japanese Poets
THE PRIEST MANSEI (ca. 730), also called Kasamaro, was a friend and collaborator of the great poet Otomo no Yakamochi, and is included in the first Imperial anthology, the Man’yōshū.
THE MONK KENGEI (ca. 875–900) was a priest from Shirogami in Yamato province.
SŌJO HENJŌ (816–890) is one of the “six geniuses of poetry” (rokkasen). Despite being the grandson of an emperor, he left court life to become a Buddhist “high priest” (sōjō). He is rumored to have carried on an intense love affair with Ono no Komachi, who is generally thought to be the greatest female poet of ancient Japan.
THE MONK SOSEI (d. ca. 909) was a renga (linked verse) master whose travel journals were an inspiration and model for Bashō. His name is linked forever with Kyushu Island and the northern Shirakawa Barrier.
KI NO TSURAYUKI (d. ca. 945) was a co-editor of the major anthology Kokinshū, and his preface (“Poetry begins in the heart . . . ”) is one of the most famous in all of Japanese literature. His Tosa Journal was a source of inspiration for Bashō.
SAIGYŌ (1118–1190) left an influential family to take Buddhist vows at twenty-three. Although he was not technically Zen, his influence on Zen aesthetics is profound. His life and work inspired Ikkyū, Bashō, Ryōkan, and countless other major Japanese poets. He spent most of his life as an itinerate priest.
FUJIWARA NO IETAKA (1158–1237) was a student of Fujiwara Shunzei. He blossomed as a poet only late in life, establishing unshin (“heartfelt emotion”) as a major aspect of the “lofty style” that dominated literary orthodoxy throughout the medieval period.
THE PRIEST JAKUREN (1139–1202) was a monk and a nephew of Fujiwara Shunzei. His poems are included in the major anthology Shinkokinshū.
FUJIWARA NO TEIKA (1162–1241) was the heir to Shunzei, and he became an important literary editor, collecting and editing ancient texts including Genji monogatari, diaries, and a major imperial anthology as well as the eternally popular One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each.
ASUKAI MASATSUNE (1170–1221) was a middle-level official whose work survives only in a few poems in the Shinkokinshū.
DŌGEN KIGEN (1200–1253) studied in China before becoming a Zen master and one of the most influential teachers and writers in the Zen tradition. He wrote poem-sermons in Chinese verse and traditional Japanese short poems (waka). Five centuries later, Ryōkan wrote a number of poems by simply revisioning waka by Dōgen.
KŌHŌ KENNICHI (1241–1316) was the son of Emperor Go Saga. He was a member of the Gozan (“Five Mountains”) group of influential Zen poets in Kyoto. He was the teacher of Musō Soseki.
EMPEROR FUSHIMA (1265–1317) ruled during the late Kamakura period (1287–1298). He was a patron of poets and one of the most literate and enlightened of rulers.
EMPRESS EIFUKU MON-IN (1271–1342) was the wife of Emperor Fushima. She was a leader in the Kyōgoku school of poets.
MUSŌ SOSEKI (1275–1351) was born to a remote branch of the Genji clan and was related to the powerful Ashikagas. His first Zen teacher was Chinese, and Musō “failed miserably.” But under the guidance of Kōhō Kennichi, he received inka (certification of enlightenment) in 1305. He founded Tenryū Temple west of Kyoto in 1339 and worked tirelessly to preserve Zen traditions.
IKKYŪ SŌJUN (1394–1481) resigned after nine days as headmaster at Daitokuji, Kyoto’s huge temple complex, denouncing the hypocrisy of monks and inviting them to talk with him “in the sake parlors and whorehouses” they secretly frequented. At seventy, he scandalized the Buddhist community by falling in love with a young blind singer and moving her into his quarters. He supervised reconstruction of Daitokuji after a devastating fire and became part of a group of artists—including Murata Shuko in tea ceremony, Sōgi in linked verse, Zenchiku in Noh drama—that brought Zen deeply into Japanese arts. The Sōgi school of ink painting was made up entirely of Ikkyū’s students. He revolutionized the art of the shakuhachi (vertical bamboo flute).
SŌGI (1421–1502) was a renga (linked verse) master whose travel journals were a source of inspiration for Bashō and Issa. His name is linked to Kyushu Island and to the northern Shirakawa Barrier.
SŌIN (1604–1682).
MATSUO BASHŌ (1644–1694) elevated haiku into great art, and his haibun (haiku and prose) travel/spiritual journal, Narrow Road to the Interior, is a major masterpiece. He made great haiku from “ordinariness,” revitalized the whole critical vocabulary of poetry, and spent a lifetime searching for the “Way of Poetry.”
KIKAKU (1661–1707) was a friend and student of Bashō.
ONITSURA (1661–1738) left the service of the lord of Kōriyama to devote himself entirely to the “Way of Haiku.”
BUSON (1715–1783) is often the third haiku poet included (along with Bashō and Issa) in the trio that stands above all others. He was a devoted family man and successful painter.
RYŌKAN (1758–1831) was an eccentric Zen master who lived a solitary life in a northwestern mountain hut, supported only by his begging bowl. He loved the ancient poetry of the Man’yōshū and wrote poems in both Chinese and Japanese. Like Ikkyū, he fell in love late in life, but unlike Ikkyū, he preserved decorum except for a few poems of longing. He loved playing with children and bouncing the silk ball. In northwestern Japan, he is an authentic folk hero.
KOBAYASHI ISSA (1763–1827) was driven from his home by a conniving stepmother when he was fourteen. He lived in poverty for years in Edo (modern Tokyo), and eventually married, but within ten years, his wife and all five of their children had died of various causes. Four years later, he married again, fathering a daughter who was born shortly after the poet’s death. His haibun masterpiece, The Spring of My Life, is the second great spiritual travel journal in the art form perfected by Bashō.