Li Qingzhao

(1084 - c. 1155)

Most of Li Qingzhao’s poetry has been lost over the past millennium, and what exists of her seven volumes of essays and six volumes of poetry are mostly fragmented examples of Chinese song poetry. She was born in 1084 to scholar parents and lived in a household filled with books. Her husband died when they fled Shandong during the Juchen dynasty’s takeover of Kaifeng; her work grew more somber during her years of exile and solitude. Li Qingzhao is remembered as one of her country’s greatest female poets. Several craters on Mercury and Venus are named after her.