[05/18/27] Li Qingzhao: The Painful Part of Spring

Copper Canyon Press, paperback

Translated by Red Pine

Publication Date: May 18, 2027

Publisher Marketing:

With The Painful Part of Spring, experience Song-dynasty China through the eyes of its greatest woman poet.

In his latest bilingual collection, The Painful Part of Spring, Red Pine turns to China's greatest and most influential woman poet, Li Qingzhao. Organized chronologically and supplemented by Red Pine's clarifying biographical notes, these poems reveal a lyricism deeply rooted in the seasons of Qingzhao's life--tracing the poet's shift from an audacious teenager in court to a relative recluse following the death of her husband. Set to melodies that have since been lost, Qingzhao's verses see flowers bloom and die; incense, ever-present, creeps and meanders through a room; wine glasses fill and empty while the political machine turns, the winds of her fortune change, and her husband arrives and departs. At last, Qingzhao remarks, "a thousand miles of mountain passes tire a dreamer out." Immersive and emotionally resonant, these poems are especially precious for having survived a literary culture whose preservation was left entirely to men. The Painful Part of Spring is essential reading from one of our most remarkable and noteworthy literary ancestors.