Breaking the Willow is a wonderful collection of classic Chinese poems on the themes of parting and exile. The poems capture brief meetings between poet friends over a jug of wine, the lament of lovers parting, and the seclusion of the hermit. One can smell the incense smoke, hear the night rain on an autumn lake, and see the moon shining through the pines.

David Lunde is a poet and translator. His most recent books include Blues for Port City and The Carving of Insects, Bian Zhilin’s collected poems, which was co-translated with Mary M.Y. Fung and won the 2007 PEN USA Translation Award.