Li Bai poems thrill Canada

The poems of Li Bai (AD 701-762) were celebrated on Monday night in Vancouver when works of the famed literary master were recited in 10 languages as part of the ongoing Asian Heritage Month in the Canadian city.

Staged by the World Poetry Extravaganza, a group that works to promote appreciation of the great poets of the world, the life story of Li Bai in the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907), the peak period for Chinese poetry, was celebrated in Richmond, a neighboring satellite city to Vancouver where Chinese make up nearly 50 percent of the population of 193,000. Li Bai's extravagant imagination and striking imagery resulted in some memorable poetry as he often used metaphors to explain the unexplainable. Around 1,000 of his poems have been saved for posterity.

While the poet's works have been kept alive for centuries in China, they did not reach a Western audience until 1862 following a French translation. In 1901, H.A. Giles produced an English translation, while in 1915 Ezra Pound, the famed expatriate American poet, came out with a Japanese translation Cathay.