Liú Yǔxī 劉禹錫 (772–842), zì Mèngdé 夢得, was a Zhōngshān Wújí 中山無極 native (the Péngchéng designation in his Xīn Tángshū biography is the ancestral seat). Jìnshì of Zhēnyuán 9 (793) and bóxué hóngcí of the same year. He served at the Censorate and rose under the Yǒngzhēn reform faction of Wáng Shūwén 王叔文 in 805; the faction’s collapse the same year produced the Bā sīmǎ (Eight Marshals) episode, in which Liú was banished for ten years to Lǎngzhōu 朗州. Recalled to Chángān in 815, he was again exiled (to Liánzhōu 連州) after the Yuándū guān peach-blossom poem incident; subsequent postings included Kuízhōu and Hézhōu. Late in life he served as Tàizǐ bīnkè (Lord-Guest of the Heir Apparent) — hence the title Liú Bīnkè. Throughout his career he maintained a lifelong literary friendship with Liǔ Zōngyuán 柳宗元 (the LiúLiǔ pairing) and a sustained chànghé exchange with Bái Jūyì 白居易.
Liú’s principal works in the corpus: Liú Bīnkè wénjí KR4c0051 (verse + prose, 30 + 10 juǎn; edited in part by Sòng Mǐnqiú 宋敏求). His best-known prose includes the Lòushì míng 陋室銘, the Tiān lùn 天論 (a substantial yuánqì-cosmology essay countering Hán Yù’s heaven-arguments), and the Zǐ Liúzǐ zìzhuàn 子劉子自傳 (autobiographical apologia for Wáng Shūwén). His verse, particularly the zhúzhī cí 竹枝詞 (“bamboo-branch songs,” based on Sìchuān folk forms) and the Yángliǔ zhī cí 楊柳枝詞, transformed Táng yuèfǔ practice. CBDB id 33606.