Hello again everyone, Lausla Montgomery here, C. H.P. Episode 2-18. So happy to be able to spend the next 20, 30 minutes with you.

How could I not have included tongue poetry on the original list of topics I brainstormed back in early 2010.

As far as Chinese culture goes, wouldn't you agree, tongue poetry and poetry in general is sort of an important subject.

But just like with the subject to Chinese philosophy I hit this grinding concern

that there wasn't enough interest in poetry out in CHP land.

So up to now, after languishing on the list of CHP topics for nine years, I'm finally

getting around to giving tongue poetry the respect it deserves.

And all this time since the earliest incarnation of the China History Podcast,

this one topic kept getting requested again and again.

So to everyone hammering me since 2010, this one's for you.

On one of the recent Chinese literature podcast episodes from the Moore brothers,

well actually they're not related, just purely a coincidence that two guys

surname Moore ended up at the University of Oregon, getting PhDs and Chinese

lit and started a podcast. I was listening to one of their latest that covered a famous Tong poet we'll look at later.

And it gave me the sudden inspiration to think about how to

best present something that I kept trying to convince myself most of you might pass on.

What I want to offer you first in this episode is a concise overview of ancient Chinese poetry

before the Tang Dynasty and look at some of the major names to come out of that era.

And by the time we finish, whenever that may be, you'll all know why. Tong poetry is so important and you'll have a nice

understanding of how everything developed from the ancient times during the Joe

Dynasty all the way up to and including the tongue.

After a lot of fulmination on the matter,

...