Love Poems from China

LOVE is, so is POETRY, the universal language. We wish to offer these Love Poems of China spanning twenty centuries, to enliven and enlighten you.

Since most of the existing love poems from ancient China were written by men, often using the voices from the womens’s point of view. The reason was to allow men to express more tender emotions, personal feelings that might conflict with their official images as statesmen and idealistically, patriotic and heroic administrators – as were most of these poets, including Li Bai, Du Fu of Tang Dynasty and Su Dong Buo of Song Dynasty.

Writing with borrowed voices also allowed male poets to explore deeper terrains of human feelings of others, through the female courtesans who sang and danced, and provided intimate physical as well as intellectual exchanges for these men, normally not posssible to experience in their own traditional households. It was almost conventional to use women’s voices by these poets, to freely express themselves in love poetry, to express a broad range of male desires, even suppressed political sentiments subtly.

You can order the CD for US$15 each plus shipping costs (US US$4, other places US$10).