The Poetic Garden of Liu Zongyuan

Book excerpt: Written in exile, Liu Zongyuan's remarkable poetry reflects the experience of banishment, flickering political ambition, and landscape, deeply imbued with the landscapes of South China. The Poetic Garden of Liu Zongyuan introduces poems by the Chinese writer, which he wrote while in exile on the Chinese empire's southern margins. In these remarkable pieces, Liu intertwines South China's landscapes and plants--such as scarlet canna, banyan, and white myoga ginger--with reflections on honor, duty, banishment, and belonging in ways unique in the history of Chinese poetry. The two translators, Dolton-Thornton and Yu Yuanyuan, one American and one Chinese, preserve the unique beauty of Liu's poetic garden and introduce it to the English-speaking world.