Aust Winner 澳洲长风论坛

[钱志富]

12 Rules of Poetry Writing
Qian Zhifu
PhD and vice professor of Faculty of Foreign Languages,
Ningbo University，Zhejiang，315211, P.R.China

(1) So far, it is popularly held that there are two concepts on poetry writing. One is “subject-decisive” which had once long dominated the world of literature and poetry and which considered that there have to be some “important subjects” to which the poets together with the writers must conform; the other is “futility of subjects” or “subject-un-relatedness” which believed the concept of “poetry for poetry’s sake”, and the subject is sheer meaningless for the production of poetry. I, however, agree with neither of them. I think they both go to the extremes, thus none of them is favorable to the prosperity and development of the poetry as an art. I personally think poetry itself does have a problem concerning with subject matter, but the subject as the writing object only take effect when it had the contradictory but united effect upon the producing body. This effect is the touch of the poet’s life and soul. So I think, as for subject, so long as it can intrigue the poet’s life, emotions, and soul, anything could be the subject of poetry , no matter it is related to beauty , herb ,heaven or earth, mountains, rivers, history or reality, philosophy, religion, culture, fairy tales or as the universe, life, folklores, exotic flavors, the upper or the lower half of human body, or even corpses of animals and plants, or human waste. It is sheer nonsense for some people to hold so narrow a view on poetry as to confine it to a certain range. Poems written without a truly longing heart will be sheer inanition, phoniness or inferior ones.

(2) Certainly, poets should go deep into the theme. I think the theme of poetry has great aesthetic value like ideas, emotions themselves, so the denial of the fact that the subject of a poem is like thoughts, emotions or so is equal to the denial of poem itself. Taiwan poet Luo Fu said, “Poems should be a kind of meaningful beauty rather than meaningless beauty.” (Reference: “The Aesthetic Tradition and Creativity of Poems” in “Truth Only” 2003(4)) This is true. Wang Fuzi in Qing Dynasty, also said that “No matter poems or prose, priority shall be given to themes . Meaning is like the marshal of a troop, soldiers without a marshal will be chaotic (in disorder). Li Bai and Du Fu are considered as master poets for few of their poems are composed without a theme. Smoke, clouds, fountain and stones, flowers, birds and woods, golden beds and tents, the figurative meaning of them are conspicuous. If poets like those living in between Qi and Liang dynasties who can only compose beautiful sentences and poets like those living in Song dynasty who can only compose poems by editing those former poets would not express their own powerful and spontaneous feelings produced from their hearts and souls, they are called minor poets who are always confined by their own limitations.”(Reference: Wangfuzi: Collections of Preludes, A Chronicle Collection of Literary Theory of All Dynasties, Shanghai Classics Press 1980, P.300)

Poetry is a literary style for poets to convey their ideas and emotions. So ideas and emotions shall be the key elements of poetry. Western poet Johann W Goethe even lifted the theme to the height of originality. He said that “ The best symbol of originality lies in the fact that after fixing the subject, one can make the subject into full play, thus enabling people to admit that they are totally unable to find out so many things from that subject. (Translated by Cheng Daixi ‘On Creativity of Johann W Goethe’, in ‘People’s Daily Newspaper’ April 17th, 1981)

(3) As for writing techniques, I think, whatever undergoes the polish of the poet’s authentic life, emotions and soul can be poetry no matter what language it is written what rhetorical devices the writer employs; no matter it rhymes o not, even the choice of writing techniques such as romanticism, symbolism or realism, modernism, post-modernism ，surrealism or classicism might be neglected. Guo Moruo said, “I think as long as the poems express the pure poetic meaning and poetic situation, and as long as they are the strain flowing from the source of life, the melody played from heart, the vibration of life and the screaming of the soul, they would be true poems and good poems which serve as the source of human happiness, the beautiful drinks of intoxication and the heaven of comfort and peace. Every time I come across poems of this kind, old or new, modern or ancient, domestic or foreign, I have the impulse of swallowing and digesting them thoroughly. (Guo Moruo： “Three Reading Notes on Poems” in “ On Modern Chinese Poems ,1985 :54-55, Huacheng Press) Han Dong,, one of the representative postmodernism poets in contemporary China, once remarked that made a convincing statement that “the writing of poems seems to concern not only about techniques and ,mental activities, but the poet’s whole life, so “ language” in ‘ Poems stop at language’ doesn’t refer to grammar, words or the characteristics of the piece of writing unrelated to the poet. Real beautiful language is what of perfect harmony with one’s inner world”. Certainly, the poems written in a certain language can only retain its original beauty in the language it is composed of. Translation of poems might be a good practice, but not so reliable. Admittedly, Chinese Poetry of Tang and Song dynasty has infinite charms even if they are translated into other languages, yet I’m still willing to persuade the sinologists to read these poems in Chinese rather than those in the language of English , French or Russian etc.. Our Chinese mainly appreciate the beauty of English poetry in English language, the French poetry from French, the Russian Poetry in Russia. However, those who have to read the foreign poetry in its Chinese version because they are not so familiar with foreign languages seem to attain much aesthetic feelings as well.

(4) In terms of the language of poems, I think they should be lively and inspiring because what the language of the poems connects is the life, the emotions and souls of the poet and the readers. The key of poetry lies in life, emotions, and soul. A poet, first of all, as a living creature, must be energetic and ardent. He must be highly aware of and sensitive to the world he is living in and has the deep sympathy with all aspects of life. Secondly, he should be a highly emotional person: on one hand, he should have a strong sense of love. What he pursues with an eager mind is truth, justice, purity, nobility, truth, kindness and beauty; on the other hand, he should have strong sense of hatred: he should condemn the vices and abhor autarchy and tyranny. On the whole, he would rather ‘ die for virtues and justice’ he will never be scared in showing his hatred to injustice and vices. Finally, he must keep his soul in fire. His poems are the record of his glittering soul, no matter bitterness or happiness he would receive; Many literary giants expressed this idea. Luxun, (Chinese literary giant) said, “ Poetry is the vapor of blood.” Haizi said, “Poetry is a raging fire.” Yu Guangzhong said, “ The biggest comfort of a poet is that his poems will pass down and keep alive in the hot lips and the boiling blood. And the so-called ‘immortality’ in poetry doesn’t mean poetry should be as cold as the marble. (Reference: Yu Guangzhong: “Is Immortality a piece of hard rock?” “The Essays of Yu Guangzhong”, 1997:111) Yu Guangzhong told the truth of poetry. the greatest poets like Li (Libai) Du ( Du Fu) ,Shelley ,Byron or Pushkin got their fame from ” the ever fragrant words and the soul of poems”

(5) In terms of styles, I assert that poetry has a wide range of choices. Poems can be employed to convey the poet’s feelings and ambitions, or to describe scenery, to persuade or to narrate. The point is whether the poet can show the depth, height, and range of the life, emotions and soul while he is expressing his feelings and ambitions, narrating , describing scenery and persuading. Poetry can have all kinds of structures, but not restrained to a certain rhyme. Nature and emotions are the most primary elements in forming a poem, but emotions themselves cannot be poems, they become poems after they are associated with the things or reasons or sceneries and in perfect integration with rhymes. Certainly, the difference between the Eastern and Western literature gives rise to the difference in the actual situation of poetry writing. The Western poetry first of all is good at narrating and conveying feelings and finally the imagery aesthetics is obtained. However, Chinese poetry is made by showing ambitions and feelings, depicting sceneries which produced numerous classic works “Combining the actual situation of Eastern and Western literary tradition, we propose 3 modes of composing. They are: the integration of emotions and sceneries with rhymes; of the integration of emotions and events with rhymes and integration of emotions and reasons with rhymes. Chinese traditional literary critics mostly emphasize the first mode while neglecting the latter two. Therefore in the history of Chinese poetry, the systematic works such as epics and philosophical ones are hardly found, but they are blooming in the West. However, most new Chinese poems did adopt to the composing mode of conveying emotions, narrating and reasoning through images at the expenses of rhymes.

(6) I think for poetry writing, the poet need to be talented, courageous, sensitive and capable. What does talent mean? By Talent, I mean gift, instinct, and the poet’s intuition. A poet must be sensitive by nature and able to respond promptly to the object world and both of them correspond and are mingled together. The combination of the world and the people can be easily embodied in the poet himself. The poet is the pioneer of civilization as if he came to the world at the earliest period whereas he is also the most mature and most modernized one. He can often foretell what is happening as a prophet. By courage, I mean that the poet should not stoop to powers. A poet pursues the truth, benevolence and beauty while abhors the falseness, ugliness and vices all his life. He is fearless when confronted with the vicious power. A poet should be sacredly hearted and courageous. Hu Feng said, “ A poet and a soldier are always two incarnations of the same god.” which clarified this point. Courage may also mean the invention and development of the new styles of poetry. It also means the spirit of fighting against the traditional powers. Then what do we mean by sensitivity? It means foresight and sagacity. A poet should always keep alert. No observation, no creation. A poet should not only be good at observing the truth, benevolence and beauty, but also be good at observing falseness, ugliness and vices. Without new observation, no progress could be made. Then what does capability mean? It means the ability to show the poet, or, the ability of the impromptu poetry writing of a poet. Inspiration means the exciting situation when the poet is writing his poems. Without inspiration, the producing of poetry is impossible. Naturally, the production of arts needs practice. Without practice, the talent, courage, sensitivity, and capability and inspiration can’t be brought into full play. Horace once said in his ‘Poetic Arts’, “Diligence without gift or gift without diligence is useless. The two should be combined. (Horace: ‘The Poetic Arts’:408, translated by Yang Zhouhan,)

(7) Poetry should be brief and short. If there is anything to be promoted in Chinese new poems of the last century, it is that many poets, including the most famous ones, did a job not so satisfactory in brevity. Here I don’t mean prose poetry, because it is not bad for poets to put poems in the forms of prose. The famous Chinese writer Lu Xun put much prose in his prose verse anthology “Wild Grass”. Ai Qing even advocated the beauty of prose in poems. By “prose poetry”, I mean the flat, direct way of poetry writing. Many poets neglected that by expressing feelings and persuading in poetry, images should be employed, which is different from composing prose or fictions. Poetry is born on wings which put emphasis on its spirituality. Poetry got its aesthetic value by brevity. Poetry, once it deserves its name, home or abroad, ancient or modern, it must comply to regulations on lines or words, such as the sonnet, Japanese haiku, Chinese regular poems or short poems. These regulations didn't mean to restrict poems as a purpose but as a means of refraining the poets from getting too far, thus making it a prose instead of a poem. That is also why many people today advocate mini poems and short poems no more than 10 lines. Though most of them still depict, narrate and expressing their emotions without any image, thus making their poems prose like. I once mentioned in a letter to Mr. Mu Ren that “the key element mini poems are advocated today lies not in the form of a few lines, but the vast scope the poem covers, the authenticity of soul and the subtlety and purity of life. So mini poems must condense the spiritual life of the poet and try to make it rich in content, otherwise, the brief and subtle aesthetic characteristics can’t be attained”. Now it seems that my opinion is not outdated.

( Poems have forms. The problem is that most of us people interpret forms so “formalistically” that they ignore its organizing effect on the poet’s spiritual life. Form is the visible cover of the poetry’s spirits, life and soul. There are two forms of poetry: one is the formulated form, such as the Chinese regular poems and short poems (the poem with eight lines, each containing five or seven characters, with a strict tonal pattern and rhyme scheme), which is called Lujue in Chinese, Ciqu (another form of rhythmical poetry), sonnet, haiku, Rubaiyat and so on; the other is the non-formulated form such as the free verse and prose verse. The latter is not compulsory for the organizing effect upon the author; instead, it opens a broad field of autonomy for the poetry. The practice of the global free verses, prose verses show that the non-formulated form is also a kind of poetry with strong aesthetic advantages and it produced special poetic realm---- not only the literary state is eminent, but also the musical state aloof. Certainly, the formulated form still hasn’t lost its advantages of style, many excellent classics are produced in formulated forms, ancient or modern, domestic or foreign. So we disapprove many poets arguing fiercely for what they considered to be “right poetry forms”. So long as the poem is well written, its form matters little. It may be written in forms already existed or any invented ones. Since recent years, some poetry critics of the poetry theory world often cite the saying by Lu Zhiwei in order to emphasize the effect of the form of the poems, “It is of great importance to have rhythm, and to rhyme is not a crime.” (Lu Zhiwei: “The form of my poem” “ Chinese Modern Poetics Works”, 1982: 70) Actually, for poems, not to rhyme is not crime either. Why do people abhor the free verses and prose verse which have contributed countless classic poems for Chinese new poems? It’s true that Lu Xun once advocated that poems should have rhythm and rhyme because it would be easy to read and memorize and recite them. But what Lu proposed is for the overall victory of the new poems over old ones and for driving the old ones out of people’s mind. However, judging from his works, his success in producing prose verses and old poems has no rivals. Actually, judging from the present situation of the new poems, it’s unnecessary for us to urge people to drive the old poems out of their mind. It’s acceptable to write a poem in the old forms. So long as the poem is well written, it is welcome. Hu Feng produced a great number of excellent poetry in old forms of poetry. Surely, he made some amendments in adopting those forms succeeded.

(9) I also think for a poet living in China, a special nation, ceaseless life-long cultural cultivation is of great importance. A poet should have a heart of Buddha, behavior as Confucius, and entity of universe. A heart of Buddha means a merciful and benevolent heart, a heart as the saying goes “bright as the autumn’s moon, as pure as the green pond.” The heart of the poet should get rid of the worries and confusion of common people. Confucianism behavior means that a poet should shoulder the tasks of the whole nation, be kind, brave and fearless; he should at first cultivate himself, raise his family, has a sense of self-discipline and then rule the country and bring peace to the whole world. A poet should “worry people’s worries prior to people and enjoy the achievements after them”. He should be responsible, and have a hand in writing. Entity of universe means that a poet should have deep sympathy with the universe and life and should reveal the essence of universe and life in beautiful poems. Naturally, a poet should have free spirit, independent personality, democratic and scientific thoughts, all of which are the cultural cultivation and qualities that a poet should acquire. Poetic Styles are reflections of personalities. In all the literary genres, poetry has the closest tie with personality. Johann W Goethe said, “On the whole, the style of a poet is the signal of his inner world. The writer must have a clear mind before writing in a clear style; to make his works grand, he should first of all have grand personalities.” (“The Talking Recollections of Johann W Goethe”: 39) These words are especially true to a poet. Hu Feng said that “generally speaking, a poet and a soldier are two incarnations of the same god” which is also great truth. that’s why we are emphasizing the importance of cultivation. Possibly it is the heart of Buddha, the behavior of Confucianism and entity of universe poets possess played such a great role in the history of Chinese culture and civilization, especially those ancient Chinese poets who had made such great contributions to the material and spiritual prosperity of ancient China, the stability of society, and the flourishing of the nation. Yue Fei is a great strategist and also a great poet. Li Shiming, the emperor of Tang dynasty was also a poet. These two all prove that China pays special attention to the passing down of the poetry and etiquette both to a family and to a country. In several-thousand-year history of Chinese civilization, most dynasties have great poems.

(10) Imagination is certainly of great importance for the effects of the poetry. On one hand, poetry is different from news, academic thesis, or text books. In poetry creating, a poet should bring his imagination into full play. On the other hand, poetry is different from fictions, plays or films because poetry is non-fictional, so poems cannot be composed on sheer imagination. The poet Dai Wangshu once said, “A poem is not all facts and not all imagination either.” The imagination of a poem is a creative activity beyond the refrain of time and space of a poet’s life and soul, and is the release of a poet’s inner power. The function of a poet’s imagination is rather special. Shelley once said that the imagination of a poet can change what he encounters. Ancient Chinese people consider the poet’s imagination magic. All these gave illustrations about it. Liu Xie once said, “the old said, “Though a person’s body is above the rivers and seas, his mind might remain in the palace. Magic imaginations means that one’s thinking can be very far from the present. So sudden worry may result in thousands of thinking; subtle changes of facial expression may bring minds thousands miles away. While he is reading, his words burst out like gems and in front of his eye-brows, he can see the appearance of all the things: Is his imagination reached? The reason why the thinking is so magnificent is that the imagination goes with the object. He also says, “The magic imagination means that all the things all compete to show, the rules are unreal, and the carves invisible. In mountain climbing we should show our feelings to the mountain, and in sea watching we should be filled with emotions for the sea. The talent that I have can be equal to the whole world. ( Liu Xie: Literary Heart and Carving Dragon, Guizhou People Press, 1992 edition, page 327,330). Westerners like Shakespeare have also talked about the magic effects of the imagination in poetry. In “Midsummer Night’s Dream”, he cited, “crazy ones, lovers, and poets are fully composed of imagination. A poet’s eyes look around in a burst of fabulous craziness, he looks down from the sky to the ground and from the ground to the sky. With the imagination endowed to the unknown thing with body, the magic pen of the poet describing them out giving a position and name to the visionary thing.” The imagination of a poem can be divided into 2 kinds: one is real imagination, the other is fantasy. Real imagination has something to do with what Liu Xie called “the imagination connected with the objects.” It can’t do without the subject of the poet writes on. This kind of real imagination can also be called responsive imagination, experience imagination. Fantasies can be without the subject, and image may go as for as possible. Mythical and surrealistic poetries generally adopt this kind of imagination.

(11) Certainly, poetry can sometimes be a banner and a bomb (the poet from USSR named Mayakovsky held this opinion and has ever written a great number of wonderful poems),but poetry is not always a banner or a bomb. The functions of poetry reaches a very broad areas: they can be strict or relaxing, they may be filled with philosophical ideas, and sometimes they seem to be for entertainment only. So we could not label a poem. Bai Juyi, a poet in Tang Dynasty is a realistic poet, but he also composed some light poems popularly accepted in the general public. Tao Yuanming, a pastoral poet, yet Luxun commented that his poem ‘Ode to Jin Ke’ is not so solemn and grand as other poems by Tao. Judging from this, we get to know that functions of poems shouldn’t be refrained in a certain range, and this kind of refrain can be dangerous to the development of poetry. In retrospect, it is not difficult to prove my words. We have for a long time admit only the political functions, especially the function of class struggle of poems, which have brought immense harm to the development of Chinese new poems. However, some of today’s poets setting out from the concept of the flooded politicization, oppose all the things concerned with the politics. They again get to another extreme. Neither of them are feasible. The present poets may put more emphasis on the entertaining function of the poems. I have once written an essay on the health-care function of the poem, and recently I received some material from America by a the local poet Wang Yaodong, in which it said that there is a research institution, in which the caring function of poetry is studied. It seems that the scholars from different cultural background can also have the same ideas in some special field. It is certain that poetry sometimes can be collective and sometimes individual, or the integration of the collective and the individual, otherwise poems can’t be read and the symbolic meaning make no sense. We are against the privatization of one’s personal experience; on the other hand, we are against the demolishing of poet’s individuality. A poet as an individual should be able to communicate with others and meanwhile others should be able to communicate with him, this is not a poetical secret. But for some poets, it’s difficult for them to comply with this rule. They stubbornly hold a contradictory view towards individualism and collectivism, they either only admit collectivity such as talking about the antiquity or nationality whenever they meet some problems or only admit individualism such as only admitting the animal nature and privateness of a life at any moment when they think it’s necessary. The result is that what they wrote is only the privatized experience: others can’t communicate with them through their poems. Illegibility of poems is the biggest problem.

(12) The producing of a poem has something to do with style. The saying that style is equal to one’s personality is generally correct. But what is personality? This is another question. I think that style refers to one’s personalities, the life and soul itself. So in the process of poetry producing, those who revealed what is touched on the depth of his inner world and soul, may compose the most styled poems, poems with the most distinct characteristics of his personality. Therefore good poem, a poem with a good style and personalities must pour out from the life and soul and having effect upon the life and soul. That is why ancient people said, “ to move of the heaven and earth, to make the ghost and fairy weep, to change the customs, and to deepen one’s ethics are all functions of poetry.” That’s true. Fortunately, there are many poets in China and abroad, ancient and today, so we are not alone. But it’s a pity that nowadays many people seem not to understand it, and write many so-called poems without life and soul.

The above is my opinion on the12 rules in poetry writing. The key point is, which I put on my composing of poets, poems should be from true life, soul and emotions, and all the other rules are based on this one. There is a saying that is ‘Good qualities can never be alone’. In my schooling, I found that many poets held the same view with me, for example, Pasternak aid that he didn’t care all kinds of poetry schools except his inner world, his spirit that is focused on himself. Ellan Poe also said so. So it seems that my 12 rules of poetry writing are not nonsense. I can rest assured.

A brief introduction to the author: Qian Zhifu, male, Han nationality, born in May, 1966, in Wusheng, Sichuan, P.R.China. PhD and vice professor. In 1984, he is enrolleded by the Foreign Languages Department of South-West China Normal University, majoring in English language. In 1988, he attained the bachelor of arts in English Language. In the same year, he became a graduate student in Chinese New Poems Research Institute of South-West China Normal University, majoring in modern Chinese Literature and got the Master degree in 1991. During 1991 and 1999, he acted as English interpreter and translator in Xin-jiang Tuha Oil field and had visited 8 European and American countries including United States of America, Canada, Germany and France etc. In 1999, he passed the examination of doctor degree and became doctoral candidate of modern Chinese of arts of literature in the combined enrollment of the Arts and Literature College of Suzhou University and Chinese New Poems Research Institute of South-West China Normal University, specializing in Chinese modern poems research, he got his doctor degree in 2002. Now he acted as a teacher in the Faculty of Foreign Languages of Ningbo University, the vice administrator of the intercultural communication bureau, the instructor of the graduates. Now he is mainly engaged in the study of comparative literature and modern Chinese poetry, and in the same time he is producing poems and essays, he has published two poems anthologies: ‘I’m unwilling to be burnt up by you’ and ‘The Heart of the Palm is a Vast Sea’. He attended the making up of ‘The dictionary of Foreign famous poetry Analysis And Appreciation’ and ‘Chinese New poems Treasure’. He won the 40th anniversary poetry commentary award of the poetry magazine ‘Grapes Garden’ in 2002. In January, 2005, he won the 2nd prize of Gold prize in the 1st Global Chinese essays ‘World Cup’. Presently, he is making researches on two provincially comparative literature projects, one is the comparative study of Chinese and English poetry tradition, the other one is the comparative study of Chinese and English literature tradition.

Since 1988, he had begun to publish thesis on poetry and poetics and comparative literature in such magazines as ‘The magazine of poetry’, The magazine of ‘ Stars’, ‘The Gazette of literary works and arts’, ‘ Green Wind’, ‘ The poetry newspaper of Yellow river’ ‘ Contemporary poetry’, ‘ Poetry woods’, ‘Chinese western literature’, ‘Chinese Petroleum Newspaper’, ‘ Literature of the Yellow River’, ‘ Scientific Poetry Magazine’, the magazine of ‘Writing’, ‘ Mini poetry’ , ‘ International Chinese Poetry World’, ‘ the poetry periodical of ‘ Big kites’, the magazine of ‘Exploration of poetry’, ‘Ningbo University Academic Journal’, ‘Chinese Poetry’, ‘ Literature port’, ‘ Foshan Arts’, ‘ Jiangsu Tong zhan’, ‘Wujiang’, ‘ A general review of the new poems’, ‘ The Study of Chinese comparative literature’, ‘Century Outlook’ ‘ Chinese cultural newspaper’, ‘ Chinese Science Journal’, ‘Kunming teachers higher specialized school Journal’, ‘Huaibei Coal teachers college Journal’, ‘ The Vocational College of Jiangsu Province Journal’, ‘ The Grapes Garden’ of Taiwan, ‘ Blue Star Poetics’, ‘New Continent’ of America, ‘ Poetry Net’ of Hongkong’, and ‘ Academic Research’ and so on. The communication ways: 1, 315211, Faculty of Foreign Languages of Ningbo University of Zhejiang Province. P.R. China 2, email: qianzhifu@nbu.edu.cn 3, Phone: 0574-87606507

[jakezhou]

拜读大作，一家之见。可以尊重。不过，怎么宣扬自己这么多呢，有何意义？有看法，就自由交流，不必主动拿出自己的背景来。出身和自己观点的高明与否有何关系呢，请教，谢谢。

[jakezhou]

顺便再说一下，英文偶有中国式英语痕迹，有些地方校对可能没作好。作家Edgar Allan Poe,不是Ellan Poe。谢谢，不要见怪。

[海外逸士]

nationality refers to country, not to race or tribe. so his nationality is Chinese, not Han.