"Don't say women are dull and not heroic. I've come east alone, riding the winds for a thousand leagues. My poetic imagination ranges far and wide, as freely as a sailboat on an open sea.”... Qiu Jin, poet, essayist, feminist and revolutionary martyr…

A brilliant but stifled talent; Cai Wenji was a poet/composer from the Han Dynasty

A portion of her works - "the eighteen laments" - is available through Google Books.

in remote green mountains,
a vague sound of distant flutes
drift within a lingering rain

gently a lotus flower opens
as it is touched by
slivers of warming sunlight

reaching for what is,
for what is hoped for,
for the unseen,
without end, waiting to taste
the one word of always;

beggars in
shadowy rags seek
to inhale the freshness
of peach blossom pools, where
life is lighter than a cloudless heaven, and,
where one woman’s work lingers yet in
a scent of jasmine



richard lloyd cederberg