Li Bai

Li Bai, also romanized Li Po, was a poet of Tang-dynasty China, ranked with Du Fu among the era's foremost writers. Born in 701, likely at the Central Asian garrison town of Suyab, he was raised from childhood in Jiangyou in Sichuan. As a young man he settled at An Lu (modern Anlu, Hubei), where he married into the Xu family and lived for roughly a decade. He spent much of his life traveling the empire, briefly holding a post in the Hanlin Academy at the capital, Chang'an, before leaving court. His verse, marked by imagery of moon, wine, mountains, and rivers and by an expansive, spontaneous voice, survives in roughly a thousand poems. He died in 762 at Dangtu in present-day Anhui. His work shaped later Chinese and East Asian poetry.