Writers › Writer / Poet
Li Qi
High Tang poet who passed the jinshi in 735 and served as a county defender at Xinxiang; known for seven-character ballads and frontier verse such as Old Song of the Army.
In a study at night, a desk holds a brush pot, a porcelain vase with a plum branch, a lit red lantern, a folded fan and an unrolled blank scroll, with no one seated there, while through a round window the moon rises over a lake with a sailboat.
Also known as Li Qi (traditional form)
- Roles
- Writer / Poet
Li Qi, a native of Zhaozhou from the Zhaojun Li clan who lived long in Wulin county (near Dengfeng, Henan), was a High Tang poet. He took the jinshi in 735 and served as defender of Xinxiang county; passed over for promotion, he resigned and retired before 751. He excelled at seven-character ballads and frontier poems, notably Old Song of the Army, Old Intent, and Listening to Dong Ting Play the Reed Pipe. The Complete Tang Poems keeps 127 of his poems in three scrolls.
Life and times
Dates c. 690 CE–c. 751 CE