Female poets were hermits, concubines, revolutionaries, matrons, painters, historians, courtesans, disappointed lovers and honored grandmothers; hence, the incredible diversity of their art.
Cai Yan, daughter of an eminent statesman, was captured in AD 192 by a raiding party of barbarian mercenaries and described in verse her life among the nomads. Cheng Changwen, in the ninth century, was put in jail without a trial after killing t
he local ruffian who attacked her. From her cell, she composed "Writing my feelings to the Regional Inspector. While in Prison."Ten centuries later, Qiu Jin, poet, essayist, feminist and revolutionary martyr, was to express her will to reform women's image and status—as well as her political convictions—in the following verse:
"Don't say women are dull and not heroic.
I've come east alone, riding the winds for a thousand leagues.
My poetic imagination ranges far and wide,
As freely as a sailboat on an open sea.”
Undoubtedly, Chinese women poets were far from being "dull.“ Their contributions to Chinese poetry, which was long neglected, are now coming to light, fulfilling the wish of 16th century male critic Tian Yiheng: "As women are in a different situation from male scholars, all their writings, even a single word or a single line, ought to be put in the record. Their merits being so great, how can one say that they are only of small supplementary benefit?"
