Facing the Moon

Facing the Moon: Poems of Li Bai and Du Fu brings together English translations of China's two master poets. This bilingual collection pairs each verse with its original Chinese text, complemented by calligraphy and traditional ink paintings. Published to mark the twentieth anniversary of its first edition, this expanded volume includes several newly added longer poems, an introduction to the poets and their legacy, and a bibliography. What sets Holyoak's translations apart is their dedication to structural fidelity alongside poetic meaning. Rather than adopting free verse or conventional English rhyme schemes, they carefully approximate the metric form and rhyme patterns of the classical originals.