The Orchid Boat: Women Poets of China

The Orchid Boat: Women Poets of China edited and translated by Kenneth Rexroth and Ling Chung, 150 pages.

In this collection Rexroth presents poems of love and loss, contemplative poems and even some by Chao Luan-Luan (from sometime around the 8th century) that were advertisements for the services of courtesans. All of them were written by women poets; the oldest, "A Song of Magpies" by Lady Ho, who lived somewhere 300 BCE, and the most recent were from poets who were still alive in 1973 when the book was first published. Li Ch'ing-chao, said by the editors to be "universally considered tobe China's greatest woman poet. . ." figures prominently in this volume.
In "Spring Ends," a poem mourning the passing of a loved one, she says:

The wind stops.

Nothing is left of Spring but fragrant dust. 

Although it is late in  the day,

I have been too exhausted to comb my hair. 

Our furniture is just the same,

But he no longer exists.

I am unable to do anything at all,

Before I can speak my tears choke me.

I hear that Spring at Two Rivers

Is still beautiful.

I had hoped to take a boat there,,

But I am afraid my little boat

Is too small to ever reach Two Rivers, 

Laden with my heavy sorrow.

Many of the modern poets, perhaps unsurprisingly given the time of publication, seem to be from Taiwan.
As with other similar Rexroth titles, 100 Poems from the Chinese, and Love and the Turning Year, the biographical essays about the poets add tremendously to the book.A lovely collection.