Li Qingzhao was a Chinese poet and essayist during the Song Dynasty, considered one of the greatest poets in Chinese history. She was born to a family of scholar-officials, which are politicians and government officials chosen by the emperor to perform political duties. Her family had a large collection of books and Li was able to receive a good education in her childhood. Before she got married, her poetry was already well known in elite groups. She married Zhao Mingcheng in 1101, who shared interests in poetry and epigraphy. Only about 100 of her poems are known to survive; a majority of which are ci form poems, a type of Chinese lyric poetry, as well as shi form poems, a poetry tradition modeled after the Old Chinese works in the Confucian Classic of Poetry. Two impact craters on planet Mercury and plant Venus are named after her, showing the extent of the impact she still has centuries after her death.