THE ANTHOLOGIST SINCE 1927 THE LITERARY AND FINE ARTS JOURNAL OF RUTGERS COLLEGE N O T E S A Note from Erik Kennedy [Editor 2001-2003] The Chinese emperor Hongli claimed to have written 40,000 poems in his eighty year life. Forty-thousand! (For the quizzical, that's more than a poem a day, every day, for all of his eighty years.) Most of them, no doubt, were uninspired pieces of naturalistic trash such as only the Chinese could write. And no doubt, also, his court advisers within the Forbidden City of Beijing marveled at the poems, loved them dearly as precious emanations of the divine. But imagine what the emperor could have done with an editor! He may have written a few thousand fewer poems, but how improved they might have been! At the least, an editor (a brave fellow, to tell the emperor he's writing doggerel) might have limited his published output, preventing sheaves of imperial, but worthless verse from escaping into the world. This is the function The Anthologist tries to serve at Rutgers. We hope to publish only the emperor's best, while still encouraging him to write to his heart's content. Now, a dreamy welcome & a toast from the emperor himself. Cheers, & welcome to The Anthologist's website. On Excellent Tea The charcoal fire is burning fiercely, with a kettle hanged over. Boiling bubbles like fish eyes and crab foam are floating up slowly, and tributary Qiqiang Tea is being boiled in the kettle. Under the full moon, the poet fosters boundless poetic feeling which repels all sense of the bitter cold.