Poem 001. The goose here is a metaphor for an official who has been sent away from court.
Poem 002. I'm pretty sure the plants are a metaphor.
Poem 003. This one is about a guy cultivating in seclusion—yes, like in a Cdrama. I'm pretty sure "passion" here is not actually about having pantsfeels but rather just the standard "oh no I actually want to eat things and I'm bored", but it's fun to read it the other way too.
Poem 004. This one's a bit awkward because I'm pretty sure there's at least three layers to this poem. The usual interpretation is that the poet is sad about being sent to Jiangnan (south of the river, ie way out in the sticks for someone from the capital) and the oranges are a metaphor for his gifts to the emperor and his superiors to try to get them to let him come home. However, when I was looking up various phrases to try to get a better understanding of them, I realized that a ton of them relate to various rebellions that happened prior (and some fairly recently so) to when the poem was written. I think Zhang Jiuling is trying to warn his superiors and/or the emperor that he's got a rebellion brewing in the South.
Poem 005. If you've read Mo Dao Zu Shi or seen The Untamed, Lan Wangji's name comes from the last two Chinese characters of this poem.
Poem 006. The usual interpretation of this poem is a little less sexually charged, but let's be real, people in the Tang Dynasty still got horny.
Poem 007. This one comes in two versions. The usual reading is 7a, where the POV character is the wife of a soldier who's been sent to the border to protect it. However, I couldn't find anything in the poem that would preclude reading it as in 7b, where she's a "concubine" (ie not legally married to the guy) who got knocked up after a few nights of passion.
Poem 008. I think there's an interpretation here where the last line is a reference to the idiom that "behind every mountain there is a taller mountain", meaning that there's always someone better than you. But otherwise this poem doesn't really do much for me.
Poem 009. I took a few liberties with this one—it's more likely that he intended an interpretation where he's meeting his friend's kids. But the author is very literally dead, and has been dead for a millennium, and I like this interpretation better.
Poem 010. This is where I really started trusting my own understanding enough to vary from the established meanings of poems. What's the fun in poetry interpretations if you don't? Also, this one has line notes if you click through.
Poem 011. Lots of footnotes this time. I'm not completely convinced by my interpretation, although I think it's not completely wrong either.
Poem 012. This is part 2 but to me it feels like those should be reversed.
Poem 013. This is the first instance I've translated of a popular genre of poem, the "my friend is leaving his job and I'm sad about it" poem. I'm sure it has a more dignified name in Chinese.
Poem 014. No commentary on the page for this one, yet. It really needs footnotes to explain the references in the first few lines, but I haven't written any yet.
