Yin Mountain

Poetry as an invitation

Yin Mountain explores women’s embodied spirituality through the voices of eighth-century Daoist priestesses. Rebecca’s translation invites readers into a meeting place of spiritual inquiry, poetry, and the natural world. Freshly translated poems reveal the complexity, self-realization, and spiritual freedom of three classical Daoist women poets.

Yin Mountain presents a fascinating window onto the lives of three Tang Dynasty Daoist women poets. Li Ye (c. 734–784), Xue Tao (c. 768–832), and Yu Xuanji (843–868) lived and wrote during the period when Chinese poetry reached its greatest height. Yet, while the names of the male poets of this era, such as Tu Fu, Li Bo, and Wang Wei, are all easily recognized, the names of its accomplished women poets are hardly known at all.

Through the lenses of mysticism, naturalism, and ordinary life, the five dozen poems collected here express these women’s profound devotion to Daoist spiritual practice. Their interweaving of plain yet poignant, revealing speech with compelling, inventive imagery expresses their creative relationship to the myths, legends, and traditions of Daoist Goddess culture. Woven throughout the rich tapestry of their writings are their sensuality and hard-wrought, candid emotions about their personal loves and losses. Despite that, these poets’ extraordinary skills were recognized during their lifetimes; as women, they struggled relentlessly for artistic, emotional, and financial independence befitting their talent. The poems exude the charged charisma of their refusal to hold back within a culture, much like our own, that was cosmopolitan yet still restrictive of women's freedom.

Skillfully introduced and translated by acclaimed translators Peter Levitt and Rebecca Nie, these wonderful poems will resonate with the lives of spiritual practitioners today, especially women.

This book is perfect for readers drawn to poetry, Eastern spirituality, and a contemplative approach to everyday life.