岑参

Cen Shen was a Tang dynasty poet best known for his frontier verse; he is often mentioned together with Gao Shi as "Gao and Cen." Publicly available sources offer limited detail on his life, and his birth and death years, native place, and official career cannot be reliably established. The library holds eight of his works, including The Complete Works of Cen Shen and such pieces as "Sending Secretary Shi to the Staff of Lord Cui," "Sending Vice Director Cui into Qin to Visit Old Friends," "Sending Director Zhang to Longyou to Visit His Parents," "Idle Sitting in the Commandery Study," "Hearing a Flute on an Autumn Night," "Inscribing the Gaoguan Thatched Cottage upon First Receiving Office," and "Feasting Xin Zi at the South Pool and Matching a Rhyme." These titles show that his writing often deals with parting, exchange, travel, and quiet retirement, frequently touching on frontier scenery and staff life. His language is concise and his images expansive, conveying reflections on the times and on life through grief and separation. Cen Shen's style is bold and unconstrained, and he excels at bringing extraordinary landscapes into poetry; he holds an important place in the High Tang frontier tradition and has deeply influenced later writing on similar themes.