GAO QI (KAO CH'I) (1336-1374)

Gao Qi came from Suzhou, in Jiangsu Province, and is thought of as the premier poet of the Ming dynasty, despite his early death. He was a precocious youth, and as a teen formed a poetic group called the Ten Friends on the North Outskirts or the Ten Talented Ones. Along with three literary friends (including the poet Zhang Yu, also included in this volume), he was known as one of the "Four Distinguished Men of Wu." He is known as a townsman poet, a poet of humble origins, and was part of a tradition of townsman poetry in the region of Suzhou that also included the painter-poet Shen Zhou, but was far more successful at it than others in the tradition. He gravitated towards the poets of the High Tang and of the Han and Wei dynasties, anticipating the tastes of the Old Phraseology movement that was to appear in another two centuries. He might have been associated with the government of Zhang Shicheng, whose regime was opposed and conquered by the first emperor of the Ming dynasty. Although Gao Qi seems to have survived in the first years of the Ming, he was after seven years executed upon slight pretext, only 38 years old. His extraordinary facility as a poet allowed him to easily imitate the styles of past poets.
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Passing by a Mountain Cottage

In the sound of a flowing stream a spinning wheel is heard.
A stone bridge. A dark springtime of flowerless trees.
From what place does the wind carry this sweet smell?
Tea baking at noon in a cottage over the hill.

        ---Translated by Tony Barnstone and Chou Ping

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Lying Idle while It Rains

By a slant bamboo table behind a screen the bed hides.
I lie watching new swallows visiting a poor house.
Nothing on my mind, I live an idle life
but I worry whether this rain will hurt the apricot blossoms.

        ---Translated by Tony Barnstone and Chou Ping