Blue Mat: Poems After Yang Wanli

These poems are written in the spirit of Yang Wanli, one of the four major poets of the Southern Song Dynasty in China. Each poem touches on the miraculous detail of everyday experience, following Yang Wanli’s iconoclastic attention to the ordinary, in keeping with his practice of Chan Buddhism. In addition to the translations, adaptations and original poems inspired by Yang Wanli, there are also a number of translations of poems by the late Tang Dynasty poet Du Mu.