Related Resources • Our library of Classical poets

Elsewhere on the Web • Li Po poems in English at China the Beautiful • Li Po at Asian Topics • Another translation & commentary on “Drinking Alone Under the Moon”

Li “Wiseguy” Po, the maestro himself, author of 100,000 poems, all of them better than anything you’ll ever write. Li Po (pronounced as li bô, also known as Li Bai, li bye, or Li T’ai-po, li tye bô) was born in what is now Sichuan province in the T’ang Dynasty. He was a nobody in a class-bound Confucian society. He lived the wild mad poet’s life when poets had real jobs connected with courts and businesses -- you could not be fired! So, he was banished in 744.

Legend maintains he died jumping into the moon -- late, drunk, in canoe, caught sight of the moon’s reflection, plop.... however, scholars believe he died from cirrhosis of the liver or from mercury poisoning due to Taoist longevity elixirs. About 1,100 of his poems are extant. Long live Li Po!

One of the tribe of eight poets in our first Survivor Poet game here at About Poetry, Li Po survived into the second round of voting. He was represented in that round by his poem as witness to a distant war:

Moon over Mountain Pass

A bright moon rising above Tian Shan Mountain,
Lost in a vast ocean of clouds.
The long wind, across thousands upon thousands of miles,
Blows past the Jade-Gate Pass.
The army of Han has gone down the Baiteng Road,
As the barbarian hordes probe at Qinghai Bay.
It is known that from the battlefield
Few ever live to return.
Men at Garrison look on the border scene,
Home thoughts deepen sorrow on their faces.
In the towered chambers tonight,
Ceaseless are the women’s sighs.

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The poem that represented Li Po’s work in the first round of Survivor Poet was one of his most famous, often titled “Drinking Alone Under the Moon”:

I take my wine jug out among the flowers
to drink alone, without friends.

I raise my cup to entice the moon.
That, and my shadow, makes us three.

But the moon doesn’t drink,
and my shadow silently follows.

I will travel with moon and shadow,
happy to the end of spring.

When I sing, the moon dances.
When I dance, my shadow dances, too.

We share life’s joys when sober.
Drunk, each goes a separate way.

Constant friends, although we wander,
we’ll meet again in the Milky Way.

tr. Sam Hamill

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