Biography

杜牧 (803－852), 晚唐著名诗人和古文家。字牧之，号樊川，京兆万年人。出身高门士族 (祖父杜佑是中唐有名的宰相和史学家)。擅长长篇五言古诗和七律。

Poet and essayist DU MU (803-852) was born in Wan-nien in the capital district. Scion of a distinguished family (his grandfather became Duke of Ch’i), he earned his chin-shih degree in 828 and was assigned to posts in the provinces. He had political ambitions to strengthen the royal family and restore the court to its former glory but disliked both major factions struggling for power. Fed up with these forces, he decided to live a life of pleasure and became known as a connoisseur of beautiful women. In his poetry he avoided both the “ornate and strange” and the “commonplace and ordinary.”

DAVID LUNDE‘s poems and translations have appeared in Poetry, The Iowa Review, Triquarterly, Kansas Quarterly, Northwest Review, and others. His work has been included in forty anthologies. He is the author of eleven books of poems and translations, including Nightfishing in Great Sky River (Anamnesis Press, 1999); The Carving of Insects: Brian Zhilin’s Collected Poems (Renditions, 2006, co-translated with Mary M.Y. Fung, winner of the 2007 PEN USA Translation Award); Instead (Mayapple Press, 2007); Breaking the Willow (White Pine Press, 2008), and 300 Tang Poems (White Pine Press, 2011).