The Magpie at Night
The Complete Poems of Li Qingzhao (1084–1151)
by Li Qingzhao
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Pub Date Feb 25 2025 | Archive Date Mar 25 2025
Description
A luminous new translation of the greatest woman poet in Chinese history, highlighting Li Qingzhao's iconoclastic verse and showcasing her visionary portrait of the inner workings of the artist’s mind.
The Magpie at Night is a lyrical and searching portrait of the inner life of Li Qingzhao, one of the greatest poets in Chinese literary history. These spare and arresting poems evoke with rare immediacy the quiet and haunting beauty of country life during the Song dynasty; the unseen, restive labor of the poet; and Li Qingzhao’s bracing and complex take on what it means to create art as a woman in the shadow of exile, war, imprisonment, and an unwelcoming literary establishment.
In Wendy Chen’s splendid new translation, each of Li Qingzhao’s ci—lyrics that were originally set to music—is as sharp and fresh as the edge of a new spring leaf. These richly textured bolts of melody tell a story that will resonate with scholars eager to restore this iconic figure to the canon of classical Chinese poetry, as well as with contemporary readers who will relate to the strikingly modern mode in which she delivers her wry, unsentimental, and bracing thoughts on art and posterity.
A Note From the Publisher
Advance Praise
“The Magpie at Night teaches us many a lesson of transformations: we learn that hair can 'grieve' and the water-clock is 'quiet,' we learn that the 'pot of spring' can 'break apart memory.' But most of all, we learn that poetry can survive the ravages of war and time, and after many centuries—thanks to Wendy Chen’s clarifying translations—the Song dynasty classic visits us in English. I am grateful for such transformations.” — Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic
"Wendy Chen translates with a true poet's sensitivity to language, metaphor, and image. Indeed, to bring Li Qingzhao's poems to an English-speaking audience with such precision and obvious skill is a remarkable achievement. Here are poems as timeless as they are timely, as mysterious as they are rewarding." —Kristina Marie Darling, author of Daylight Has Already Come: Selected Poems
"Li Qingzhao's poems conjure the sound of rain on banana leaves, pale clouds 'smudging the moon,' the momentary solace of a dream, and how 'longing saturates the human world, / the heavens.' Her remarkable attention is gifted to us by Wendy Chen's remarkable acuity." —Michael Prior, author of Burning Province
"To read Li Qingzhao's work is to feel an intensity of spirit that says—even time cannot erase me. Wendy Chen's brilliant new translation ought to ensure that remains true. What heartache, what imagery, what absolute mastery there is in every line here." —John Freeman, author of Wind, Trees
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9780374612757 |
| PRICE | $18.00 (USD) |
| PAGES | 144 |
