Two Poets

床前明月光
Chuáng qián míngyuè guāng
疑是地上霜
Yí shì dìshang shuāng
举头望明月
Jǔtóu wàng míngyuè
低头思故乡.
Dītóu sī gùxiāng

I've heard about Li Bai 李白, the famous Chinese poet from Tang Dynasty and his famed poem, Quiet Night Thoughts 靜夜思, said to reflect the nostalgia of a traveller away from home but Xu Zhimo 徐志摩? I first heard of him in 2000 from a Chinese school teacher who was a fan of the TV series April Rhapsody. The series was supposed to be based on his romantic life, albeit too short. It seem that Xu Zhimo is one of China's most renowned poets in the 20th century, a free-thinking one who strove to loosen Chinese poetry from its traditional forms, and to reshape it under the influences of Western poetry and the vernacular Chinese language. In his short life of 34 years, he was romantically linked with
Zhang Youyi, Lin Huiyin, and Lu Xiaoman, even American author Pearl S. Buck and American journalist Agnes Smedley.  Xu Zhimo died in a plane crash in 1931.

Guess which is Li Bai, which is Xu Zhimo? No prize for guessing!


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