Witness the man who raged at the wall as he carved his questions to heaven!
Li, He, or Li Ho
791-817. Although he died at
twenty-six years old,
eccentric Chinese poet Li He produced a body of work that was both excellent by contemporary standards and remarkable for its differences. Where others' work was gentle and pretty, or gentle and sad, his work was dark and
morbid. He was, in a way, the
Edgar Allan Poe of classical
Chinese poetry.
Li was said to ride out each morning followed by a
footservant, who carried a bag into which Li would toss occasional scraps of
poetry that occurred to him. At night he would put these lines together into verse.
Some selected poetry of Li He: