The Great Tang’s Poems and Smoke

At a banquet in Tengwang Pavilion in the sixth year of the Yonghui era of the Tang dynasty, Su Yan, the son of a court historian, attends with his family’s heirloom bronze inkstone. The inkstone, entrusted to his family by Empress Zhangsun, is the “key to the literary heritage of the Great Tang” and holds the secret that “the fortunes of poetry are the fortunes of the nation.” He sees the impoverished scholar Wang Bo overturn the power balance with his Preface to the Pavilion of Prince Teng. But in the fading ink on the manuscript, he glimpses the danger of the Wu clan seizing power. From that moment on, he embarks on a mission to protect the “poetic flame” across four dynasties. In the early Tang, he hides Chen Zi’ang’s poems of righteous indignation and copies Wang Ji’s “Wild View,” protecting the first glimmers of a new voice. In the wine shops of the high Tang, he helps Li Bai revise “Bring in the Wine” to avoid disaster, joins Du Fu in writing “Song of the War Wagons” to condemn harsh rule, and helps Gao Shi conceal military intelligence in “Song of Yan.” During the An Lushan Rebellion, he carries Du Fu’s bloodstained drafts of “Three Officials and Three Farewells” through the smoke of war and helps Bai Juyi use “The Charcoal Seller” to expose corruption. Amid the late Tang warlords’ strife, he forms an alliance with the “Three Worthies of the Late Tang” and establishes “Poetry Relay Stations” and “Poetry Copying Houses” to resist the “poetry ban.” Before Zhu Wen usurps the Tang, he buries the bronze inkstone in the Pavilion of Poetic Heritage, leaving behind a vow: “A thousand years from now, the inkstone will remain, and poetry will remain.” A thousand years later, at an archaeological site in Songjiang, the bronze inkstone begins to glow. Wang Bo’s draft, Li Bai’s handwritten original, and Du Fu’s bloodstained manuscript reappear one after another. In front of the museum display case, children recite poems and an old man weeps. At last, the poetic spirit of the Great Tang becomes an undying flame through the ages.