Jin Yi.

About Jin Yi

Jin Yi was a Qing dynasty poet from Suzhou. Born into a local gentry family, she demonstrated remarkable talent at a very young age, and surpassed all her brothers when learning to compose poetry. Considered one of the most talented students of Yuan Mei, 108 of her poems were included in his anthology of works by his female students, the Suiyuan nüdizi shixuan. In his eulogy of Jin Yi, Yuan Mei wrote: "At a very early age she could already read books and distinguish the four tones. She loved to compose poetry, and every time she let fall her brush it was like a fleet horse prancing along unable to talk." A contemporary Qing poet, Wang Zhenyi, considered her to be an emblematic "banished immortal", akin to Li Bai. Jin Yi's complete collection of poetic works in four volumes was titled Shouyinlou Shicao.