Yu Xuanji (c. 843-868) was a concubine, a Daoist priestess, and a poet who was executed at the age of twenty-six on dubious accusations of murder. Though only approximately fifty of her poems have survived, she is now the most famous woman poet of the Tang dynasty.Lucas Klein is Associate Professor of Chinese at Arizona State University and Associate Editor of the Hsu-Tang Library of Classical Chinese Literature. His publications include The Organization of Distance and, as coeditor, Chinese Poetry and Translation and The Bloomsbury Handbook of Modern Chinese Literature in Translation. He is also the translator of poetry by Mang Ke, Li Shangyin, Duo Duo, and Xi Chuan.

• AcknowledgementsIntroduction Poems 1. Written on the Willows on the River 2. To the Neighbor Girl 3. To Guoxiang4. To the Master Alchemist 5. To Secretary Liu 6. At the Temple of Washing Silk 7. Selling Wilted Peonies 8. In Exchange for the Mat from Scholar Li 9. A Love Letter for Li Yi 10. A Boudoir Complaint 11. Spring Feelings, Sent to Li Yi 12. Polo Poem 13. Feelings at the End of Spring, Sent to a Friend 14. Winter Night, Sent to Wen Tingyun 15. In Exchange for Li Ying's poem "Coming Back from Fishing One Summer Day" 16. Rhyming with My New Neighbor to the West, On Sharing Some Wine 17. Rhyming with a Friend 18. Rhymes Mourning a New Graduate: Two Poems 19. Traveling to the Daoist Temple of Reverent Authenticity, I See the Names of New Candidates Posted on the South Tower 20. Sad Thoughts: Two Poems 21. River Ditty 22. Hearing that Censor Li was Back from Fishing I Sent This as a Gift 23. At Providing Fortune Monastery, Created by Recluse Ren 24. At the Pavilion Hidden in Fog 25. Detained by Rain on Double Ninth Festival 26. Early Autumn 27. Sent to Someone as an Expression of How I Feel 28. A Date with a Friend who Couldn't Make It, Being Detained by Rain 29. Visiting Alchemist Zhao, Who Was Not There 30. Expressing Thoughts 31. Sent to Wen Tingyun 32. Stopping by Ezhou 33. Summer Days, Mountain Living 34. The Scene in Late Spring 35. An Elegy on Behalf of Someone 36. Rhyming with Someone 37. Across the Han River-for Li Yi 38. A Parable 39. Sad Longings at Jiangling, for Li Yi40. For Li Yi 41. Seeing You Off: Two Poems 42. A Welcome for Sir Li Jinren 43. Zuo Mingchang Sends a Messenger en route to the Capital from Zezhou 44. Following Someone Else's Rhyme Words 45. Guang, Wei, and Pou, Sisters Orphaned Young Who Are Growing into Beauties, Wrote a Work of Such Peerless Quintessence that Even the Snow Couplet by the Xie Family Could Add Nothing to It, So I Wrote This Following its Rhymes After It Was Shown to Me by a Visitor from the Capital46. To Break Willow Branches 47. Fragments Appendices1. "Linked Lines" by the Sisters Guang, Wei, and Pou (their surname lost) 2. Huangfu Mei (fl. 873-910), "Yu Xuanji is executed for flogging Lüqiao to death" 3. Sun Guangxian (d. 968), from The Trivialities of North Dream4. Zhai Yongming (b. 1955), "The Rhapsody of Yu Xuanji" Works Cited

If you're looking to read remarkable poetry-from the Tang era, pre-modern China, or by women poets-this collection deserves a place on your list. Yu Xuanji's work becomes even more compelling when you learn about her dramatic life, which was remarkably eventful for someone who died in her mid-twenties