A look back on the verse of Phan Văn Trị after 130 years

Phan Văn Trị (潘文值 1830–?) was a prominent writer in Cochinchina in the late nineteenth century. He achieved the rank of senior bachelor (舉人 cử nhân) in the Confucian court examination at a young age but never joined the imperial bureaucracy. Despite living an agrarian life as a layman, he was popular all over Cochinchina for his talent in poetry creation.