Late Tang poet of short, vivid quatrains. Chinese children learn his 清明, rain on the tomb-sweeping festival, and 山行, with frosted maple leaves redder than spring flowers.
'I stop my carriage, for I love the maple wood at dusk; the frosted leaves are redder than the flowers of spring' is a famous couplet by Du Mu.
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He is 小杜 'Little Du', to set him apart from the greater 杜甫, and with 李商隐 he forms 小李杜 'Little Li and Du', the late-Tang echo of 李白 and 杜甫. The title of his rhapsody 《阿房宫赋》 is a reading trap: its first two characters are said ē páng, not ā fáng.
