In the poem, “The River Merchant’s Wife: A Letter.” Li Po spoke with the sensitivity and sensibility of a mature woman. Li Po had the gift of talking through the voices of other people. There is a story that Li Po died when he drunkenly tried to embrace the reflection of the moon in the river. The Chinese valued Li Po for his spontaneity and freedom. The constant shift in visual imagery and sensation is charged with magic and beauty – ‘the sight of the deer’, ‘the sudden sky overhead’ and ‘the breathtakingly beautiful sight of the waterfall’. It begins abruptly, moves forward more unpredictably, and ends more astonishingly. “High in the Mountains, I Fail to Find the Wise Man,” is a distinctive poem of Li Po. Li Po’s poems are simple and unpretentious. To a highly tradition-bound poetry, Li Po brought a sense of freedom and adventure. Li Po may be called a ‘romantic’ poet in that almost all his poems are to some extent dream-poems many of his longer ones were like spirit-journeys related to the trances of mediums in early Chinese religious dances (Cooper and Du 35).

The poet’s presentation of himself as drunkenly enjoying some natural setting is thus a cleverly unpretentious way of presenting transcendent states of mind and being. Even nature, as Li Po likes to present it, has a kind of intoxicated quality, especially in spring.

Life at its best, according to the verses of Li Po, is a kind of intoxication, an elevation he felt that poetry like good wine should be able to promote self awareness and also be uplifting. Li Po enjoyed his wine and also used it as a poetic metaphor for the good things in life. Li Po as he was commonly known wrote many poems on the theme of drinking and being drunk. Li Bai loved drinking, swordplay and travel. He wrote more than a thousand poems in his life and has been acclaimed as the Deity of Poetry. Li Bai, alias Taibai alias Li Po was a famous poet of the High Tang period. Li Bai and Du Fu took romanticism and realism to great heights. He also bled for the families of the soldiers who were fighting in the borders. Du Fu condemned the rich who, he felt, enjoyed feasts while the poor starved to death on the roads. Du Fu’s poems revolved around social issues and were basically full of compassion for the poor and downtrodden. Du Fu, a good friend of Li Bai, belonged to a different style – one of realism. He exhibited wild and free imaginations in his poems especially in the context of nature. Li Bai was inspired by Taoism and good wines. Li Bai was the most respected romantic poet of those times.

Li po and tu fu