Ye Shaoweng (Chinese: 葉紹翁; Wade–Giles: Yeh Shao-weng; fl. 1200–1250) was a Southern Song dynasty Chinese poet from Longquan, in modern Lishui, Zhejiang province. He belonged to the Jianghu (Rivers and Lakes) School of poets, known for its unadorned style of poetry. He was an academician serving in the imperial archives in the capital Hangzhou, and authored a history on the reigns of the first four emperors of the Southern Song entitled Sichao Jianwen Lu (四朝見聞錄), covering the period of 1127–1224. He was a friend of the Neo-Confucian scholar Chen Dexiu. Little else is known about his life.
Poetry
Ye Shaoweng's most famous poem is Youyuan Buzhi (Visiting a Private Garden without Success):
The last couplet is often reused in later works, its meaning recast as a sexual innuendo. The African-American author Richard Wright wrote two haikus which bear close resemblance to Ye's poem.