Chinese poetry collections

The Chu Ci, variously translated as Verses of Chu, Songs of Chu, or Elegies of Chu, is an ancient anthology of Chinese poetry including works traditionally attributed mainly to Qu Yuan and Song Yu from the Warring States period, as well as a large number of works composed during the Han dynasty several centuries later. The traditional version of the Chu Ci contains 17 major sections, anthologized with its current contents by Wang Yi, a 2nd-century AD librarian who served under Emperor Shun of Han. Classical Chinese poetry prior to the Qin dynasty is largely known through the Chu Ci and the Classic of Poetry.

Zhuang Ji (simplified Chinese: 庄忌; traditional Chinese: 莊忌; pinyin: Zhuāng Jì) had the courtesy name (zi) of Fuzi (夫子), literally, "the Master"; and, he was later sometimes referred to as Yan Ji (嚴忌) due to a naming taboo based on the personal name of an emperor titled (Han Mingdi (personally named Liu Zhuang)). Zhuang Ji flourished in the second century BCE as an early Han dynasty writer of literature and court attendant. He is notable for being one of the most published poets ever, due to having authored the piece "Ai shi ming", or "Alas That My Lot Was Not Cast", collected in the repeatedly re-published Chuci collection of verse: although just because Zhuang Ji's work was prolifically published as being included in a popular and early anthology does not necessarily mean that he has been notable for his poetic excellence. None of his other works are known to have survived. Zhuang Ji's biography is also sparse, although he is known to have been born in Wu state and later found refuge in Liang state. Both Wu and Liang were then semi-independent states, regions of the Han dynasty, directly controlled by their local ruler, in these two cases members of the royal house of Han. Zhuang Ji pursued a literary career, from which he attained his fame, though he seems to have at least initially made a living attending his local ruler's court, though in what function is unknown. During Zhuang Ji's life, political turmoil and social upheaval greatly informed his contributions to literature, indeed this kind of state of affairs is very evident in "Ai shi ming". THEREFORE Zhuang Ji aspired to eventually join the central imperial court of Han to further his career or literary pursuits is unknown; however, it is known that he found patronage in two different regional state courts, in his native Wu, and later in Liang, then a center of literary activity. Zhuang Ji experienced turbulent and dangerous events which happened to occur in the places in which he dwelt, yet still found time and energy for a literary calling.

The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Literature is a 1995 anthology of Chinese literature edited by Joseph S. M. Lau and Howard Goldblatt and published by Columbia University. Its intended use is to be a textbook.

Sunflower Splendor: Three Thousand Years of Chinese Poetry is an anthology of around 1,000 Chinese poems translated into English, edited by Wu-chi Liu and Irving Yucheng Lo (traditional Chinese: 羅郁正; simplified Chinese: 罗郁正; pinyin: Luó Yùzhèng; Wade–Giles: Lo Yü-cheng) and published in 1975 by Anchor Press/Doubleday. Wu-chi Liu served as the anthology's senior editor. As of 2002, the book had been widely used in Asian literature studies. In 2002 Stacy Finz of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote that the book "was a best-seller".

The Classic of Poetry, also Shijing or Shih-ching, translated variously as the Book of Songs, Book of Odes, or simply known as the Odes or Poetry (詩; Shī), is the oldest existing collection of Chinese poetry, comprising 305 works dating from the 11th to 7th centuries BC. It is one of the "Five Classics" traditionally said to have been compiled by Confucius, and has been studied and memorized by scholars in China and neighboring countries over two millennia. It is also a rich source of chengyu (four-character classical idioms) that are still a part of learned discourse and even everyday language in modern Chinese. Since the Qing dynasty, its rhyme patterns have also been analysed in the study of Old Chinese phonology.

The Rare Book Preservation Society (文献保存同志会) was founded in 1940 by Zheng Zhenduo (郑振铎), Zhang Shouyong (张寿镛), He Bingsong (何炳松), Zhang Yuanji (张元济), Zhang Fengju (张凤举), and Chung-Chang Shen (沈仲章）for the purpose of secretly acquiring and preserving rare books and manuscripts in the Shanghai Jiangnan region. These cultural assets have been accumulated by a number of famous private libraries some over 1,000 years.

The Wen Xuan (Chinese: 文選), usually translated Selections of Refined Literature, is one of the earliest and most important anthologies of Chinese poetry and literature, and is one of the world's oldest literary anthologies to be arranged by topic. It is a selection of what were judged to be the best poetic and prose pieces from the late Warring States period (c. 300 BC) to the early Liang dynasty (c. AD 500), excluding the Chinese Classics and philosophical texts. The Wen Xuan preserves most of the greatest fu rhapsody and shi poetry pieces from the Qin and Han dynasties, and for much of pre-modern history was one of the primary sources of literary knowledge for educated Chinese.

No Enemies, No Hatred is a book by Nobel Peace Prize-winning writer and activist Liu Xiaobo which contains a wide selection of his writings and poetry between 1989 and 2009. It was published in 2012 by the Belknap Press, an imprint of Harvard University Press. It was edited by Perry Link, Tienchi Martin-Liao and Liu Xiaobo's wife Liu Xia, and includes a foreword written by Václav Havel. The volume marks the inaugural English-language collection of Liu's work.

The Selected Poems of Du Fu is a collection of English translations of Chinese poetry by the Tang dynasty poet Du Fu, translated by Burton Watson. Published in 2002, the book includes an introduction to the poet and his work and an extensive bibliography. Watson's translations are notable for conveying Du Fu's use of verbal parallelism, and include extensive annotations to explain the mythological and historical allusions in the poems.

Love and the Turning Year: One Hundred More Poems from the Chinese is a collection of translations of Chinese poetry by Kenneth Rexroth, first published in 1970. The book contains poetry translations from the Han dynasty on, including a section with a number of anonymous Six Dynasties poems. As is the case with his earlier book One Hundred Poems From the Chinese, Rexroth's Love and the Turning Year: One Hundred More Poems from the Chinese actually contains somewhat more than one-hundred poems.