Li Bai

Li Bai, styled Tai Bai and styled Qinglian Jushi, was a preeminent romantic poet of the Tang dynasty. Legend holds that his mother dreamed of Chang Geng Xing (Tai Bai Jin Xing, Venus—the Great White Star) entering her womb before giving birth to him, hence his style name Tai Bai. He began reciting classical primers at age five, took up swordsmanship at fifteen, and at twenty-five set off on travels across half the empire, sword in hand and family farewell behind him. While serving as Imperial Academician in Chang’an, he famously refused the emperor’s summons to board a boat, ordered the powerful eunuch Gao Lishi to remove his boots, and commanded the imperial consort Yang Guifei to grind ink for him—after which he was dismissed with a generous stipend. Du Fu praised him, saying, 'His brush fell and startled wind and rain; his poem completed moved ghosts and gods to tears'; He Zhizhang hailed him as a 'banished immortal'. Li Bai composed a hundred poems after each drinking bout, earning him the veneration of posterity as the Immortal Poet; later generations of scholars and writers worship him to pray for extraordinary literary talent and divine inspiration at the tip of the brush.