Sie Thao lived in the ninth century. Her name meant Waving Grass. She wove herself and her songs into the hearts of lovers, and has been woven by them into legends, legends which have been taken over by other countries. Poet, playright, actress and author, Mary Kennedy recalls that she found a copy of Sie Thao's poems in the original Chinese in a Shanghai bookshop. "From English renderings of these, and from other sources more recent I have adapted the poems in this book," she writes.
Marianne Moore wrote of this work, "Sie Thao: an ancient poet grieves and Nature's beauty is a language that the reader cannot resist. Only the translator can effect such magic ... a poet of Mary Kennedy's sensibility."