Li Po

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Li Po ( Li Pai, Li Tʾai-pai), (701–62). Chinese Taoist poet. Although he spent a short period in Chʾangan (Sian/Xiʾan) as a court writer (742–4), he spent most of his life wandering. Tradition makes him one of the ‘eight immortals of the wine cup’, and he himself interpreted his wild behaviour as arising from the fact that he was ‘a banished immortal’: these are immortals who do some wrong in heaven and are banished to earth for a life-time. Whatever the source, his poems express a strong ecstasy, as well as sympathy with the misfortunes of others. He remains a very popular poet.

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