Su Shi was a phenomenon in Chinese culture - as a poet, calligrapher, painter and essayist, he achieved greatness in all of these categories. At age of twenty, he passed the highest level of imperial examination to become a civil servant. His life went on smoothly until the loss of a political clash he involved turned his everything upside-down - he was then twice demoted from the court, once sent to the jail, and died in a remote land. He wrote this poem during his first banishment:

It is raining cats and dogs, fusing distant Yangtze River at the window. In this vast sheet of water my hut is like a fishing boat swaying on a raging sea. What in my humble kitchen are cold greens, and what in my dilapidated range are wet reeds. Receiving a letter from home, I realized that it is Cold Food Festival. While those noblemen live in imposing dwellings, I am going to be lost in this remote land. I want to cry for my misfortune, but my withered heart won't to respond.

The nuances of his depression between the lines gave his brushwork a changeful appearance. When his sadness burst out at “I want to cry for my misfortune”, the characters grew glaringly bigger. Brimmed with emotion without a single rash brushstroke, this work has been praised the third best of semi-cursive writing only after Foreword by Wang Xizhi and Elegy to my nephew by Yan Zhenqing. “My calligraphy is derived from nothing but my heart, and I'd rather be spontaneous than be deliberate,” once he said.