Qin ShangShang Qin was born Luo Yan in Sichuan, China in 1930. At sixteen he joined the Nationalist Army and while in the southwestern part of China began collecting folksongs and writing poetry. He arrived in Taiwan with the army in 1950 and by the mid-50s ws publishing and active in the Modernist Association, and later the Epoch Poetry Society. He retired from the military in 1968 and then went to attend the International Writers Program in Iowa, where he stayed for two years. Returning to Taiwan, he held various jobs such as working as a longshoreman and a gardener as well as selling beef noodles in Yonghe. Subsequently he worked as a newspaper editor. Hailed as a Surrealist and known as a master of the prose poem, he is generally considered one of the greatest poets of his generation. He passed away in Taipei in 2010. Read More Read Less