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Chu Shu-chen (d. 1233) grew up in Hangchou in a well-off family and became adept at poetry and painting as a young girl. However, her education far outstripped the needs of her social position, and she spent most of her life in Suchou as the wife of a minor official who was often away on extended assignments and with whom she had little in common. Instead of sewing, she wrote poems and became known throughout the country for her plaintive verses on a woman’s unequal place in Chinese society. In fact, during the Southern Sung dynasty her poetry was better known than that of her fellow woman poet Li Ch’ing-chiao (1084–1155). When she died, Chu’s parents burned most of what she had written as an offering to her departed spirit. Still, many of her poems were so well known they survived, in an edition published several decades after her death. The intertwined branches represent the union of lovers, while the King of Green (Ch’ing Ti) is the god of spring.

Falling Flowers

CHU SHU-CHEN

Whenever intertwined branches bloom

the jealous wind and rain strip away their flowers

if only the King of Green could perpetuate his rule

they wouldn’t end up scattered across the moss