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The Magpie at Night: The Complete Poems of Li Qingzhao [1084–1151]
A luminous new translation of the greatest woman poet in Chinese history, highlighting Li Qingzhao's iconoclastic verse and showcasing her visionary portrait of the inner workings of the artist’s mind.
The Magpie at Night is a lyrical and searching portrait of the inner life of Li Qingzhao, one of the greatest poets in Chinese literary history. These spare and arresting poems evoke with rare immediacy the quiet and haunting beauty of country life during the Song dynasty; the unseen, restive labor of the poet; and Li Qingzhao’s bracing and complex take on what it means to create art as a woman in the shadow of exile, war, imprisonment, and an
unwelcoming literary establishment.
In Wendy Chen’s splendid new translation, each of Li Qingzhao’s ci—lyrics that were originally set to music—is as sharp and fresh as the edge of a new spring leaf. These richly textured bolts of melody tell a story that will resonate with scholars eager to restore this iconic figure to the canon of classical Chinese poetry, as well as with contemporary readers who will relate to the strikingly modern mode in which she delivers her wry, unsentimental, and bracing thoughts on art and posterity.
The Magpie at Night is a lyrical and searching portrait of the inner life of Li Qingzhao, one of the greatest poets in Chinese literary history. These spare and arresting poems evoke with rare immediacy the quiet and haunting beauty of country life during the Song dynasty; the unseen, restive labor of the poet; and Li Qingzhao’s bracing and complex take on what it means to create art as a woman in the shadow of exile, war, imprisonment, and an
unwelcoming literary establishment.
In Wendy Chen’s splendid new translation, each of Li Qingzhao’s ci—lyrics that were originally set to music—is as sharp and fresh as the edge of a new spring leaf. These richly textured bolts of melody tell a story that will resonate with scholars eager to restore this iconic figure to the canon of classical Chinese poetry, as well as with contemporary readers who will relate to the strikingly modern mode in which she delivers her wry, unsentimental, and bracing thoughts on art and posterity.
146 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 25, 2025
7 people are currently reading
195 people want to read
About the author
Li Qingzhao
36 books16 followersA famous writer and poet from the Song dynasty, Li Qingzhao was born into a family of officials and scholars. Before she got married, her poetry was already well known within elite circles. In 1101 she married Zhao Mingcheng, with whom she shared interests in art collection and epigraphy. They lived in present-day Shandong. After he started his official career, her husband was often absent. This inspired some of the love poems that she wrote. Both she and her husband collected many books. Her husband and she shared a love of poetry and often wrote poems for each other. They also wrote about bronze artifacts of the Shang and Zhou dynasties.
The northern Song capital of Kaifeng fell in 1126 to the Jurchens during the Jin–Song wars. Fighting took place in Shandong and their house was burned. The couple brought many of their possessions when they fled to Nanjing, where they lived for a year. Zhao died in 1129 en route to an official post. The death of her husband was a cruel stroke from which she never recovered. It was then up to Li to keep safe what was left of their collection. Li described her married life and the turmoil of her flight in an Afterword to her husband's posthumously published work, Jin shi lu. Her earlier poetry portrays her carefree days as a woman of high society, and is marked by its elegance.
Li subsequently settled in Hangzhou, where the Song government was now established. She continued writing poetry and published the Jin shi lu. According to some contemporary accounts, she was briefly married to a man named Zhang Ruzhou (張汝舟) who treated her badly, and she divorced him within months. She survived the criticism of her marriage.
Only around a hundred of her poems are known to survive, mostly in the ci form and tracing her varying fortunes in life. Also a few poems in the shi form have survived, the Afterword and a study of the ci form of poetry. She is credited with the first detailed critique of the metrics of Chinese poetry. She was regarded as a master of wanyue pai "the delicate restraint".
The northern Song capital of Kaifeng fell in 1126 to the Jurchens during the Jin–Song wars. Fighting took place in Shandong and their house was burned. The couple brought many of their possessions when they fled to Nanjing, where they lived for a year. Zhao died in 1129 en route to an official post. The death of her husband was a cruel stroke from which she never recovered. It was then up to Li to keep safe what was left of their collection. Li described her married life and the turmoil of her flight in an Afterword to her husband's posthumously published work, Jin shi lu. Her earlier poetry portrays her carefree days as a woman of high society, and is marked by its elegance.
Li subsequently settled in Hangzhou, where the Song government was now established. She continued writing poetry and published the Jin shi lu. According to some contemporary accounts, she was briefly married to a man named Zhang Ruzhou (張汝舟) who treated her badly, and she divorced him within months. She survived the criticism of her marriage.
Only around a hundred of her poems are known to survive, mostly in the ci form and tracing her varying fortunes in life. Also a few poems in the shi form have survived, the Afterword and a study of the ci form of poetry. She is credited with the first detailed critique of the metrics of Chinese poetry. She was regarded as a master of wanyue pai "the delicate restraint".
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
January 27, 2025
A fascinating bundle of poems of an 12th century female poet. Li Qingzhao her work is full of nature depictions and melancholy, and feels remarkably modern at times
Now, I can no longer embrace
anything near the past.
Idle, I have doubts numerous
as moonbeams.
- Fragrant Courtyard, a Modulation
I had never heard of Li Qingzhao before, a Song dynasty poet, finally translated by a female scholar and poet Wendy Chen. The life of Li Qingzhao is fascinating. Displaced (and losing an acclaimed library and antiquities collection) by the fall of the Northern Song, losing her husband Zhao Mingcheng to dysentery. Being physically abused by her second husband, who she got convicted and exiled for corruption. However women who brought their husbands to court where jailed, imprisonment only her late husband’s familial ties could help her escape of. Even in her later years her talent is clear, with records of her presenting poems to the court of the emperor, even though in her poems she was critical of the abandonment of the Northern Song lands.
Reading this bundle and its excellent introduction also learned a lot about Chinese poetry in its many forms. Ci, poems set to music meters, wen, essays and shi, political writings, are some of the types of works Li Qingzhao produced. Her poems are very visual and vivid, evoking both natural and domestic settings. Seasons, passage of time, wine, plum blossoms and migrating birds appear often. Many festivals mark the passage of time. Tranquility and transience for main grounding themes in the grouping Wendy Chen made, ranging from initially more light and spring oriented poems to more wintery, melancholy ones at the end of the bundle.
An interesting bundle from a woman who lived through extraordinary times, skilfully brought to life for a modern audience.
Poems:
Do not resent their vanishing
fragrance, their falling
jade petals.
Have faith feelings will remain
when all traces have been swept away.
- Fragrant Courtyard
Longing saturates the human world,
the heavens.
A stair of clouds to the moon.
A thousand locked gates.
- Offering Incense
A breeze blows in
misty rain.
The pear blossoms want
to wither.
I fear
I cannot stop them.
- Silk-washing Stream
I fear our bitter parting,
your absence.
Still so much
I want to say
but cannot.
- At Phoenix tower remembering the tune of the flute
Who will drink with me
from wine and poems?
Tears ruin
the powder on my face.
- Butterflies long for the flowers
My journey is long, I say
and the sun is setting.
I have studied poetry
and attempted startling phrases
to no use.
- The Fisherman’s Pride
Soft wind. Pale sun.
Spring is just beginning.
I feel good
in my lined jacket.
But rising from sleep,
I am a little cold.
The plum blossoms in my hair
have withered.
Where is my homeland?
Only drunk can I forget.
The incense burning while I sleep
is gone when I awake.
Still, more wine remains.
- Barbarian Bodhisattva
Now, I can no longer embrace
anything near the past.
Idle, I have doubts numerous
as moonbeams.
- Fragrant Courtyard, a Modulation
I had never heard of Li Qingzhao before, a Song dynasty poet, finally translated by a female scholar and poet Wendy Chen. The life of Li Qingzhao is fascinating. Displaced (and losing an acclaimed library and antiquities collection) by the fall of the Northern Song, losing her husband Zhao Mingcheng to dysentery. Being physically abused by her second husband, who she got convicted and exiled for corruption. However women who brought their husbands to court where jailed, imprisonment only her late husband’s familial ties could help her escape of. Even in her later years her talent is clear, with records of her presenting poems to the court of the emperor, even though in her poems she was critical of the abandonment of the Northern Song lands.
Reading this bundle and its excellent introduction also learned a lot about Chinese poetry in its many forms. Ci, poems set to music meters, wen, essays and shi, political writings, are some of the types of works Li Qingzhao produced. Her poems are very visual and vivid, evoking both natural and domestic settings. Seasons, passage of time, wine, plum blossoms and migrating birds appear often. Many festivals mark the passage of time. Tranquility and transience for main grounding themes in the grouping Wendy Chen made, ranging from initially more light and spring oriented poems to more wintery, melancholy ones at the end of the bundle.
An interesting bundle from a woman who lived through extraordinary times, skilfully brought to life for a modern audience.
Poems:
Do not resent their vanishing
fragrance, their falling
jade petals.
Have faith feelings will remain
when all traces have been swept away.
- Fragrant Courtyard
Longing saturates the human world,
the heavens.
A stair of clouds to the moon.
A thousand locked gates.
- Offering Incense
A breeze blows in
misty rain.
The pear blossoms want
to wither.
I fear
I cannot stop them.
- Silk-washing Stream
I fear our bitter parting,
your absence.
Still so much
I want to say
but cannot.
- At Phoenix tower remembering the tune of the flute
Who will drink with me
from wine and poems?
Tears ruin
the powder on my face.
- Butterflies long for the flowers
My journey is long, I say
and the sun is setting.
I have studied poetry
and attempted startling phrases
to no use.
- The Fisherman’s Pride
Soft wind. Pale sun.
Spring is just beginning.
I feel good
in my lined jacket.
But rising from sleep,
I am a little cold.
The plum blossoms in my hair
have withered.
Where is my homeland?
Only drunk can I forget.
The incense burning while I sleep
is gone when I awake.
Still, more wine remains.
- Barbarian Bodhisattva
January 19, 2025
My heartfelt thanks to NetGalley & Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the opportunity to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Despite its almost millennium-long vintage, this collection of Li Qingzhao (1084-1151) reads like a stunningly contemporary book that could rub shoulders (covers?) on your bookshelf with, say, Ocean Vuong, or, depending on which thematic cluster you focus on, Constantine Cavafy (compare her "Two poems matching Zhang Wenqian's "Wuxi Restoration Ode Tablet"" with Cavafy's Nero's Deadline: very similar composition, very similar modern sense of the passage of history as a tragic loss, told with an ironic note).
Like, look at that wonderful enjambment (like the narrator needs to pause mid-phrase before admitting her longing) & the easy veering from very objective, almost pedestrian descriptions to metaphors here:
Thin fog, thick clouds. The day
is a stretch of longing.
Sticks of camphor burn away
in the mouths of golden beasts.
Look at this seemingly straightforward and quotidian depiction of banana leaves under heavy rain that then turns on a dime and punches the reader with a description of a refugee's grief in unfamiliar surroundings (Li Qingzhaon was forced to flee her home after the Jin invasion of Northern Song territory in 1125 CE) (I mean, refugee stories aren't a contemporary theme per se--much of classical European literature, from the Aeneid to Dante and onward, is about refugee experiences--but this did read very contemporary):
Pained, I listen
from my pillow
to the midnight rain.
Each cold, bitter drop.
Each cold, bitter drop.
Their sorrow hurts a northerner like me,
unused to rising and hearing them.
(Repetitions became one of the stumbling stones for me here. Clearly they play an important role in Li Qingzhaon's poetics--there's even a poem that reads like "Searching, searching. Seeking, seeking. Cold, cold. Bleak. Bleak. Icy, icy. Misery, misery. Grief, grief," which I would definitely date to centuries later, if I had to guess--but what is it that they do? Was it an individual choice or a demand of her poetic form (some of the poems were originally songs meant to be sung)? Is it kind of like the dual meaning in Frost's "miles to go before I sleep," or is it driven by metric/rhythmic considerations? So many questions I want to know the answers to but cannot parse on my own without proper knowledge of other works from that time and place!)
Anyway, or look at this whimsical beauty:
The feelings I make into poems
are like the magpie at night,
circling three times, unable to settle.
Or look at this almost surrealist awareness of absences and nonexistences:
I sat alone in a room, surrounded by the absence of my life’s belongings. [...]
Within stillness, I encounter my true selves:
Mr. Nonexistent, Sir Void.
A fascinating introduction by the translator Wendy Chen adds to this picture of Li Qingzhao as a quintessentially modern figure in terms of aesthetic choices, thematic preoccupations and even an interest in inscribing female voices into a tradition defined by the male gaze and developing a female literary genealogy (Chen highlights Li Qingzhao's interest in mentoring other female poets):
But, whatever else it might be, modern poetry it wasn't. These very old poems stem from a poetic language and tradition that has no obvious continuity even with contemporary Chinese poetry, I suspect, not to mention with any modern European literary tradition. Of course, there might be coincidences in sensibility, or tropes, or whatever, but one is inevitably haunted by the question of the role of the translator. How creative the translator's choices have been? Was there a more literal/academic approach that would result in something ostensibly more "faithful" to the original, at the expense of readability to contemporary readers? Is it something like Cathay by Ezra Pound (wonderful modernist poetry, but not necessarily the most straightforward rendition of the original?). Whatever the answer, it sure was a wonderful reading experience.
Despite its almost millennium-long vintage, this collection of Li Qingzhao (1084-1151) reads like a stunningly contemporary book that could rub shoulders (covers?) on your bookshelf with, say, Ocean Vuong, or, depending on which thematic cluster you focus on, Constantine Cavafy (compare her "Two poems matching Zhang Wenqian's "Wuxi Restoration Ode Tablet"" with Cavafy's Nero's Deadline: very similar composition, very similar modern sense of the passage of history as a tragic loss, told with an ironic note).
Like, look at that wonderful enjambment (like the narrator needs to pause mid-phrase before admitting her longing) & the easy veering from very objective, almost pedestrian descriptions to metaphors here:
Thin fog, thick clouds. The day
is a stretch of longing.
Sticks of camphor burn away
in the mouths of golden beasts.
Look at this seemingly straightforward and quotidian depiction of banana leaves under heavy rain that then turns on a dime and punches the reader with a description of a refugee's grief in unfamiliar surroundings (Li Qingzhaon was forced to flee her home after the Jin invasion of Northern Song territory in 1125 CE) (I mean, refugee stories aren't a contemporary theme per se--much of classical European literature, from the Aeneid to Dante and onward, is about refugee experiences--but this did read very contemporary):
Pained, I listen
from my pillow
to the midnight rain.
Each cold, bitter drop.
Each cold, bitter drop.
Their sorrow hurts a northerner like me,
unused to rising and hearing them.
(Repetitions became one of the stumbling stones for me here. Clearly they play an important role in Li Qingzhaon's poetics--there's even a poem that reads like "Searching, searching. Seeking, seeking. Cold, cold. Bleak. Bleak. Icy, icy. Misery, misery. Grief, grief," which I would definitely date to centuries later, if I had to guess--but what is it that they do? Was it an individual choice or a demand of her poetic form (some of the poems were originally songs meant to be sung)? Is it kind of like the dual meaning in Frost's "miles to go before I sleep," or is it driven by metric/rhythmic considerations? So many questions I want to know the answers to but cannot parse on my own without proper knowledge of other works from that time and place!)
Anyway, or look at this whimsical beauty:
The feelings I make into poems
are like the magpie at night,
circling three times, unable to settle.
Or look at this almost surrealist awareness of absences and nonexistences:
I sat alone in a room, surrounded by the absence of my life’s belongings. [...]
Within stillness, I encounter my true selves:
Mr. Nonexistent, Sir Void.
A fascinating introduction by the translator Wendy Chen adds to this picture of Li Qingzhao as a quintessentially modern figure in terms of aesthetic choices, thematic preoccupations and even an interest in inscribing female voices into a tradition defined by the male gaze and developing a female literary genealogy (Chen highlights Li Qingzhao's interest in mentoring other female poets):
Ci was an art form centered on the interiority of women but shaped by the male imagination and performed for the male gaze. [...] Li Qingzhao’s illuminating vision of the world is evident in the confidence with which she subverts tradition while operating within it; in how she injects a real, lived persona into a formerly invented space of female interiority
But, whatever else it might be, modern poetry it wasn't. These very old poems stem from a poetic language and tradition that has no obvious continuity even with contemporary Chinese poetry, I suspect, not to mention with any modern European literary tradition. Of course, there might be coincidences in sensibility, or tropes, or whatever, but one is inevitably haunted by the question of the role of the translator. How creative the translator's choices have been? Was there a more literal/academic approach that would result in something ostensibly more "faithful" to the original, at the expense of readability to contemporary readers? Is it something like Cathay by Ezra Pound (wonderful modernist poetry, but not necessarily the most straightforward rendition of the original?). Whatever the answer, it sure was a wonderful reading experience.
March 16, 2025
Exquisitely environmental poetry. Subtle, and utilizing the cycles of nature with profound skill to express melancholy and longing and a breadth of spirit.
How deep is the deep, / deep courtyard? asks Li Quinzhao in 'Immortal by the River', calling up a line she greatly admired from another poet, and spinning out from that same thread. (And this is altogether apropos, but, damn— I love intertextuality, and the interconnectivities of art, and an openness to showing the bones of the craft in an artist.)
How deep is the deep, deep courtyard?
How deep is is the deep, deep courtyard?
To Li Qinzhao, a lifetime deep.
a note on the impossibilities of translation: (I don't know any Chinese, and in all likelihood never will (I am tonedeaf and belligerently impatient.) so I am in position to be doing the tricky task of judging Wendy Chen's translation in such. In any case, I hold all poetry translation to be an innately gargantuan effort - I'd go so far as to say that a translation can represent a greater artistic effort than the original composition.)
That said,
And I am doubtful of the necessity of that, as it is expressed. Alienation is good in art. Be estranged. Be thrown beyond yourself into the world. Be kin to the other.
An excellent anthology.
{Review of an advanced reader's copy, generously provided by NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux.}
How deep is the deep, / deep courtyard? asks Li Quinzhao in 'Immortal by the River', calling up a line she greatly admired from another poet, and spinning out from that same thread. (And this is altogether apropos, but, damn— I love intertextuality, and the interconnectivities of art, and an openness to showing the bones of the craft in an artist.)
How deep is the deep, deep courtyard?
. . .
How much has passed.
Nowadays, I am old.
I make nothing.
Who pities
such frailty?
How deep is is the deep, deep courtyard?
To Li Qinzhao, a lifetime deep.
a note on the impossibilities of translation: (I don't know any Chinese, and in all likelihood never will (I am tonedeaf and belligerently impatient.) so I am in position to be doing the tricky task of judging Wendy Chen's translation in such. In any case, I hold all poetry translation to be an innately gargantuan effort - I'd go so far as to say that a translation can represent a greater artistic effort than the original composition.)
That said,
Li Qingzhao rarely uses the first person explicitly in her ci. This is a common practice in classical Chinese poetry, unlike in English poetry, as subjects are often implied through clues in the line rather than directly stated.Thus, Chen has chosen to use pronouns—especially first- and third-person pronouns ... [feeling] this helps create poems that sound more natural to English readers.
And I am doubtful of the necessity of that, as it is expressed. Alienation is good in art. Be estranged. Be thrown beyond yourself into the world. Be kin to the other.
An excellent anthology.
{Review of an advanced reader's copy, generously provided by NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux.}
December 4, 2025
i can’t really appreciate the meter that defines ci poetry due to lack of training so i focused more on semantics rather than form… most of boudoir poetry bores me but li qing zhao has these really cutting lines that are really wise and astute and perfectly capture the richness of human experience and emotion. however i preferred the poetry li qingzhao wrote when she was younger bc those poems were more whimsical, flirty, and original, but alas, once a woman in ancient china becomes married, her life is lived in the boudoir…
reading the poems li qingzhao wrote from adolescence to old age felt like reading her diary. how can ancient humans from year 1000 be so… human… so like us today… it fascinates me
reading the poems li qingzhao wrote from adolescence to old age felt like reading her diary. how can ancient humans from year 1000 be so… human… so like us today… it fascinates me
February 24, 2025
I had heard of Li Qingzhao only a few days before I came across this book, completely on accident. The cover was beautiful and seeing that I had heard of her, I acquired it immediately. (Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.)
It was a good decision—to think that someone separated from me by nine hundred years and nine thousand li could touch my heart so well, with her heart's ‘ten thousand thousand anxieties’.
She writes startling lines:
She speaks often of spring—the experience of it, the loss of it. Poems of longing for her husband. This is often a sad book, but always a beautiful one.
All this, how could one word—'beautiful'—be enough?
Wendy Chen’s translation is exquisite. Just the right amount of the original language is left in, so as to be easily readable while still reminding at every step the reader of its origins. Accompanied by generous endnotes and a marvelous essay at the beginning for proper context, I can hardly think of any way this book could have been better.
It was a good decision—to think that someone separated from me by nine hundred years and nine thousand li could touch my heart so well, with her heart's ‘ten thousand thousand anxieties’.
She writes startling lines:
The pear blossoms want
to wither
I fear
I cannot stop them.
But Flowers, do not laugh.
Pity instead that Spring,
like Man, grows old.
The feelings I make into poems
are like the magpie at night,
circling three times, unable to settle.
She speaks often of spring—the experience of it, the loss of it. Poems of longing for her husband. This is often a sad book, but always a beautiful one.
All this, how could one word—'beautiful'—be enough?
Wendy Chen’s translation is exquisite. Just the right amount of the original language is left in, so as to be easily readable while still reminding at every step the reader of its origins. Accompanied by generous endnotes and a marvelous essay at the beginning for proper context, I can hardly think of any way this book could have been better.
November 26, 2024
"The feelings I make into poems
are like the magpie at night,
circling three times, unable to settle."
I want to be the sort of person who already knew of Li Qingzhao and was familiar with her poetry. But, alas, I am not. Which is why I found the introductory material interesting and informative. Also, the notes at the end were invaluable for understanding the poems. The poetry itself was both completely foreign to me - different time, place, and culture - and beautiful. I admit I don't have the background necessary to fully understand the poems, even with the supplemental material provided in the book. But there were lines which sliced through space and time to land in my heart like an arrow from an almost mythical past. Thank you to Wendy Chen for the translation, and Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and NetGalley for the eARC.
"Who will drink with me
from wine and poems?"
are like the magpie at night,
circling three times, unable to settle."
I want to be the sort of person who already knew of Li Qingzhao and was familiar with her poetry. But, alas, I am not. Which is why I found the introductory material interesting and informative. Also, the notes at the end were invaluable for understanding the poems. The poetry itself was both completely foreign to me - different time, place, and culture - and beautiful. I admit I don't have the background necessary to fully understand the poems, even with the supplemental material provided in the book. But there were lines which sliced through space and time to land in my heart like an arrow from an almost mythical past. Thank you to Wendy Chen for the translation, and Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and NetGalley for the eARC.
"Who will drink with me
from wine and poems?"
March 27, 2025
Hard to write a review for a book of poetry. I love that this read served two purposes: one, it forced me out of my comfort zone in terms of form and topic, and two, it introduced me to the world of ancient Chinese poetry. Although obviously this barely scratches the surface of Chinese poems, I loved learning about Li Quingzhao, the greatest female poet in Chinese history. A great foreword and wonderful notes help to transport you into her writing. Not all of them stuck with me, but the ones that did were powerful in their simple and resonate observations. She lingers on many images and motifs across the span of her career, and yet I wonder what else she wrote about that was lost to time? A few favorite excerpts and poems below.
“The feelings I make into poems
are like the magpie at night,
circling three times, unable to settle.”
“…Do not resent their vanishing
fragrance, their falling
jade petals.
Have faith feelings will remain
when all races are swept away.
It is difficult to say-
Stirring against the beautiful window
and pale moon,
their scattered shadows
move me.”
- from Fragrant Courtyard: Fading Plum Blossoms
“The feelings I make into poems
are like the magpie at night,
circling three times, unable to settle.”
“…Do not resent their vanishing
fragrance, their falling
jade petals.
Have faith feelings will remain
when all races are swept away.
It is difficult to say-
Stirring against the beautiful window
and pale moon,
their scattered shadows
move me.”
- from Fragrant Courtyard: Fading Plum Blossoms
June 25, 2025
This collection was so beautifully done. Li Qingzhao is probably the greatest female Chinese poet in history and one of the great northern Sun dynasty poets. Her responses are included in many anthologies, and you went into them here and there, but this new translation by Wendy Chan was absolutely delightful. I would’ve loved to have had the original Chinese side-by-side and I would’ve also loved to have had notes on the page to make the reading experience more immersive but at the same time I also really appreciated. Just letting the translation speak for themselves. And her introduction was really compelling. I love imagining that Chen started translating Li’s poems when she was still a teenager!
This is a beautiful book! I would love to read some of the author’s novel next and of course her poetry collection!
This is a beautiful book! I would love to read some of the author’s novel next and of course her poetry collection!
2025
October 3, 2025Women in Translation TBR
📱 Thank you to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux
📱 Thank you to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux
January 25, 2025
I can’t speak to the quality of Wendy Chen’s translations in The Magpie at Night: The Complete Poems of Li Qingzhao, neither reading nor speaking Chinese. And not being a scholar of Chinese literature, or just a great reader, I have no basis for comparison in relation to past translations. Best I can do therefore, is simply review the book as I experienced the poems themselves. I’ll leave it other far more versed/learned in the field and/or the language to comment on accuracy, stylistic changes, etc.
As for the experience, I thoroughly enjoyed this collection, finding myself frequently moved by image and tone. Chen offers up a welcome prologue giving the reader some background and context on Qingzhao’s life and more generally on Chinese poetry of the time. She also explains a few of her translator decisions, such as which poems to include (the number of “accepted” poems varies greatly amongst academics) and her perhaps controversial choice to eschew the “common practice in ancient Chinese poetry” of not employing an explicit first-person. Wen instead uses first (and third) person pronouns in hope that it “helps create poems that sound more natural to English readers . . . and facilitates a glimpse into the life of a woman in Li Qingzhao’s position.” I certainly found the “I” of the poems created a sense of intimacy with the speaker that enhanced the emotional impact of many of the poems both singly and cumulatively.
Finally, with regards to the text outside of the poems, Chen closes with an appendix of notes that explain the various allusions in the works, such as to historical events/personages, myths, cultural elements like festivals, traditional symbolic meanings of certain elements such as flowers or winds, and references to other poets and their work. I’m glad Chen chose this route rather than use footnotes or margin notes as this way we get to enjoy the poems on their own, as their own work. I read the collection through then reread after perusing the notes. Yes, the notes made me more informed about the poems, but I still was happy I came to them first wholly innocent of the illusions and without the temptation of interrupting a read by glancing at a note.
The poems themselves tend to the short, with a few exceptions, with a focus on brief moments caught in images and expressions of emotional state of mind. Especially toward the end there’s a sense of grief and loss, a mourning of time’s passage, while throughout the collection there’s always a strong expression of longing in all its forms, the element that moved me the most in individual poems and in the slow accretion over the length of the collection. There’s a grace and ease to many of the poems and a nice understated use of sound, while the images stand out in their stillness and moments of precision. A highly recommended collection. I’ll end with a few favorite passages:
“A Cutting of Plum Blossoms”
Flowers, by themselves, fall.
Water too runs alone.
One shared longing,
Parted between two.
Unrelenting, it falls
From the brows, only to rise
In the heart.
“At Phoenix Tower”
I am too listless
To comb my hair
And indifferent
To the dust on the mirror …
Only the running stream before me
Keeps me company.
From now on, where I gaze,
Pour a wash of new sorrows.
“The Fisherman’s Pride”
I have studied poetry
And attempted startling phrases
To no use.
“The feelings I make into poems”
The feelings I make into poems
are like the magpie at night,
circling three times, unable to settle.
As for the experience, I thoroughly enjoyed this collection, finding myself frequently moved by image and tone. Chen offers up a welcome prologue giving the reader some background and context on Qingzhao’s life and more generally on Chinese poetry of the time. She also explains a few of her translator decisions, such as which poems to include (the number of “accepted” poems varies greatly amongst academics) and her perhaps controversial choice to eschew the “common practice in ancient Chinese poetry” of not employing an explicit first-person. Wen instead uses first (and third) person pronouns in hope that it “helps create poems that sound more natural to English readers . . . and facilitates a glimpse into the life of a woman in Li Qingzhao’s position.” I certainly found the “I” of the poems created a sense of intimacy with the speaker that enhanced the emotional impact of many of the poems both singly and cumulatively.
Finally, with regards to the text outside of the poems, Chen closes with an appendix of notes that explain the various allusions in the works, such as to historical events/personages, myths, cultural elements like festivals, traditional symbolic meanings of certain elements such as flowers or winds, and references to other poets and their work. I’m glad Chen chose this route rather than use footnotes or margin notes as this way we get to enjoy the poems on their own, as their own work. I read the collection through then reread after perusing the notes. Yes, the notes made me more informed about the poems, but I still was happy I came to them first wholly innocent of the illusions and without the temptation of interrupting a read by glancing at a note.
The poems themselves tend to the short, with a few exceptions, with a focus on brief moments caught in images and expressions of emotional state of mind. Especially toward the end there’s a sense of grief and loss, a mourning of time’s passage, while throughout the collection there’s always a strong expression of longing in all its forms, the element that moved me the most in individual poems and in the slow accretion over the length of the collection. There’s a grace and ease to many of the poems and a nice understated use of sound, while the images stand out in their stillness and moments of precision. A highly recommended collection. I’ll end with a few favorite passages:
“A Cutting of Plum Blossoms”
Flowers, by themselves, fall.
Water too runs alone.
One shared longing,
Parted between two.
Unrelenting, it falls
From the brows, only to rise
In the heart.
“At Phoenix Tower”
I am too listless
To comb my hair
And indifferent
To the dust on the mirror …
Only the running stream before me
Keeps me company.
From now on, where I gaze,
Pour a wash of new sorrows.
“The Fisherman’s Pride”
I have studied poetry
And attempted startling phrases
To no use.
“The feelings I make into poems”
The feelings I make into poems
are like the magpie at night,
circling three times, unable to settle.
August 24, 2025
''vaga, com cabelo desfeito,
lamento o passar da primavera.
no pátio, sopra a brisa nocturna
e leva para o solo, as flores de ameixeira.
nuvens claras, que vão e que voltam,
cobrem e descobrem o brilho da lua.''
a li qingzhao tem sido uma das minhas poetisas chinesas favoritas desde a adolescência. pra mim, ela é um movimento turvo repleto de uma afinidade um pouco ingênua e distante. sempre penso que gostaria de voltar um pouco que só no tempo e ficar parada perto dela, por dois ou cinco minutos, observando o que ela tanto via durante os passeios que fazia nos centros urbanos. observá-la vendo uma árvore, um riacho, uma gota d´'agua caindo de uma folha... o quanto eu poderia aprender por meio dos olhos dela? quanta beleza no cotidiano eu passaria, também, a ver? gostaria eu também de ver o deslumbre pouco a pouco aparecendo em seu rosto. como ela era enquanto sorria? o que mais passava por seus dedos enquanto ela observava o céu das cinco e meia para às seis horas? o que essa transição de cores, os passaredos, o vento aconchegante e o cheiro específico que só essas horas têm se tornava pra ela? o que ela tanto disse que sequer chegou a falar?
lamento o passar da primavera.
no pátio, sopra a brisa nocturna
e leva para o solo, as flores de ameixeira.
nuvens claras, que vão e que voltam,
cobrem e descobrem o brilho da lua.''
a li qingzhao tem sido uma das minhas poetisas chinesas favoritas desde a adolescência. pra mim, ela é um movimento turvo repleto de uma afinidade um pouco ingênua e distante. sempre penso que gostaria de voltar um pouco que só no tempo e ficar parada perto dela, por dois ou cinco minutos, observando o que ela tanto via durante os passeios que fazia nos centros urbanos. observá-la vendo uma árvore, um riacho, uma gota d´'agua caindo de uma folha... o quanto eu poderia aprender por meio dos olhos dela? quanta beleza no cotidiano eu passaria, também, a ver? gostaria eu também de ver o deslumbre pouco a pouco aparecendo em seu rosto. como ela era enquanto sorria? o que mais passava por seus dedos enquanto ela observava o céu das cinco e meia para às seis horas? o que essa transição de cores, os passaredos, o vento aconchegante e o cheiro específico que só essas horas têm se tornava pra ela? o que ela tanto disse que sequer chegou a falar?
February 24, 2025
Thank you NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the chance to read and review this! Just in time for the publication I might add!
Honestly, I didn't want to finish this book; it's truly a gem and I can't list down the number of poems, the number of moments, that have hitched my breath in my throat.
My next steps are to get a physical copy of the book so I can read and re-read at leisure and write notes and underline things and just enjoy myself!
Honestly, I didn't want to finish this book; it's truly a gem and I can't list down the number of poems, the number of moments, that have hitched my breath in my throat.
My next steps are to get a physical copy of the book so I can read and re-read at leisure and write notes and underline things and just enjoy myself!
April 18, 2025
I picked this up in the poetry section of my local bookstore and am so glad I did.
I am impressed by how much emotion remains when translated. The poems use images, many from nature, to convey mood. Very beautiful, filled with longing and sorrow. I love the clear appreciation for art, beauty, poetry, and wits. This is a collection I will return to again. So much to appreciate.
I am impressed by how much emotion remains when translated. The poems use images, many from nature, to convey mood. Very beautiful, filled with longing and sorrow. I love the clear appreciation for art, beauty, poetry, and wits. This is a collection I will return to again. So much to appreciate.
June 16, 2025
A wonderful collection! These poems, mostly composed of short stanzas, read as surprisingly modern. I particularly appreciate the later poems in the collection and their expression of longing and displacement. I also appreciate Wendy Chen’s decision to allow the poems to stand for themselves without (on the page) historical or biographical footnotes.
February 12, 2025
A beautiful, tender collection of poems whose imagery I savored every morning for my daily reading. Li Qingzhao renders the natural world into sublime focus, convey deep emotions in a unique and powerful voice.
January 20, 2025
“Idle, I have doubts numerous / as sunbeams”
January 31, 2025
Beautiful collection. So much classical imagery and lovely words. I really loved this collection. Nice read.
May 28, 2025
Gorgeous imagery and elegant phrasing.
January 16, 2026
Beautifully translated, and... well, just skip the introduction, and read the poems and notes.
January 9, 2026
The magpie at night is a lyrical and searching portrait of the inner life of Li Qingzhao, one of the greatest poets in Chinese literary history.
When I started reading the magpie at night, I didn't have clue as to who was the poet of this poems. As I started reading and liking them I became curious and that's when I started reading about Li Qingzhao. She was a Chinese poet and essayist from the song dynasty. Coming from a family of scholar officials, she was exposed to poems and received comprehensive education. Her father too was an essayist and poet, her mother too was a poet. In the initial days, her poems showed her girlish innocence, sharp mind, and love of nature, such as "Happy Memories: Dreamland".
Later after getting married she and her husband lived happily till he died of typhoid fever. Her second husband was abusive and she divorced him in months after marriage. Many of her poems for lost in times and we are left with only few which are compiled in this book.
"The feelings I make into poems
are like the magpie at night,
circling three times, unable to settle."
Thank you Netgalley and Farrar, straus and Giroux for this wonderful ARC in exchange of an honest review.
When I started reading the magpie at night, I didn't have clue as to who was the poet of this poems. As I started reading and liking them I became curious and that's when I started reading about Li Qingzhao. She was a Chinese poet and essayist from the song dynasty. Coming from a family of scholar officials, she was exposed to poems and received comprehensive education. Her father too was an essayist and poet, her mother too was a poet. In the initial days, her poems showed her girlish innocence, sharp mind, and love of nature, such as "Happy Memories: Dreamland".
Later after getting married she and her husband lived happily till he died of typhoid fever. Her second husband was abusive and she divorced him in months after marriage. Many of her poems for lost in times and we are left with only few which are compiled in this book.
"The feelings I make into poems
are like the magpie at night,
circling three times, unable to settle."
Thank you Netgalley and Farrar, straus and Giroux for this wonderful ARC in exchange of an honest review.
December 3, 2025
Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.
I love poetry collections, and this one was such a beautiful one. The foreward and the notes helped a lot with fully understanding not only the imagery behind the poems but also Li Qingzhao as well. I've never read a collection of Ancient Chinese Poetry before, but this opened the door enough to make me curious to seek out more.
I love poetry collections, and this one was such a beautiful one. The foreward and the notes helped a lot with fully understanding not only the imagery behind the poems but also Li Qingzhao as well. I've never read a collection of Ancient Chinese Poetry before, but this opened the door enough to make me curious to seek out more.
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