By The Sea: Poems Of Love, Longing, And Lust

FENG ZHOU'S VIEWS ON POETRY

FENG ZHOU'S VIEWS ON POETRY

1）What is poetry? Poetry is a kind of written art, and the first duty of a poet is to create an environment. In writing poems, the goal is to use the least amount of words to create the largest space possible. This space needs to be a beautiful space with waves of emotions beyond time and space. In this kind of space, there is an inextinguishable light, shining forth magnificent colors and radiance. That light is the heart of a poet, and that color is the sentiment of a poet, that radiance is the thinking of a poet. Poems are created amidst the life of a poet; they are the poet's sons and daughters, each with their own personality, emotions, and thoughts. Those people of today and those of future times are able to meet and understand poets through these ambassadors.

2）Writing a poem is to use words to create new life, to build a new time and space, to transfer a kind of new emotion, and to caress and color the reader’s heart. This life has a powerful, emotional hand that plays upon the strings of the reader’s heart and soul. Immortal poems are like long rivers: They are not only read by the eyes of people today, but will also be seen by future generations.

3）A poem can be a space, a series of spaces, or a compound group of many spaces. In the latter type of poem, all smaller spaces must serve the larger space, and the poet must know how to handle primary and secondary, and secondary and tertiary relationships, to achieve the optimal balance for the overall space.

4）Poetry is a comprehensive art composed of the following various arts: innovative art, surrealistic art, imaginative art, photography (how to handle lighting, perspective, and so on), as well as descriptive and expressive art. For poetry to survive into the future, it must be perfectly written, be examined from three hundred and sixty degrees, and be entirely a harmonious beauty. Poetry seeks a literary perfection in art.

5）Although poetry is a literary art, it is not a game of words. The words are simply a means to an end, and not the end in and of itself. Poetry is designed to express passion, life, love’s sentiments, and the brilliance of human nature. Sadly, many poets lack a loving heart, lack the spirit of humanitarianism, and lack a basic understanding of humanity. Many poets simply invent for the sake of innovation, playing literary games, accomplishing meaningless goals, making it difficult to become a publically credible poet of the era.

6）Poetry is an art that expresses meaning through imagery, rather than explicating through speech. Once the reader enters the space built by the poet’s words, spending time there observing, discovering, and experiencing, up until they completely understand the poet’s original intent. It is then that the reader and poet attain a level of mutual understanding.

7）In Chinese, the word for poetry (“诗歌”) is composed of the two characters 诗 and 歌. The first character means “poetry” itself, while the second character means “song.” Therefore, the “song” enflames passion, while the “poetry” offers a creative environment. The value and meaning inherent in poetry is found in its “spatial beauty,” and this is the literary foundation poetry sits on. 

8）Poetry cannot be said to be equivalent to emotion, but at the same time cannot exist without it. The most overlooked factor in poetry today is emotion, being almost entirely ignored. This directly leads to modern poetry being dry and lacking, leaving the poetic landscape a desert. The result has been abandonment of poetry by the public.

9）Poetry resides in the hearts of readers, like flowers reside in soil. The art of poetry is the art of touching hearts. Each line must strike the reader’s soul, awakening experiences of love, understandings of beauty, and epiphanies of human nature. Poems of lasting reputation are sure to have a memorable first paragraph, leaving a place in one’s soul once finished, and will stay with one for a lifetime.

10）Poems are a stone path meandering up a mountain to its peak and are not straight highways. Poems are to be carefully read word by word, like a mountaineer climbing step by step. Reading poems requires the careful experience of the time and spaces between paragraphs; good poems need to be read over and over again, with new discoveries upon each reading. This process can be carried out for a lifetime; reading Tang dynasty poems is just like this.

11）Poems can be written in combination of broad and fine aspects, large and small, surreal and real. When writing of the tangible, things must be touched, and truth must be grasped firmly. The small could come down to a single flower or tree, the fine down to the soul’s minute reverberations. When writing of the surreal, one can rely on imagination, flying high like a bird in the sky, playing with this globe with five fingers, with a planet just a grain of sand in one’s hand.

12) What is a pure poem? Love and friendship? Spring, summer, fall, and winter? Wind and flowers? Snow and moons? Men and women? It is all of these, but not simply these. From an artistic perspective, pure poems are an eternal time and space created by the poet through words. It is also beyond life, beyond the horizon, beyond you and me, beyond the human world, beyond time, and is in the endless universe. This is the aspiration of a poet; this is the life of a poet. Writing pure poetry, writing the wavering and trajectory of a soul, and writing all that is beautiful in this life, allowing words to create mutual understanding in the hearts of people of today and those of tomorrow.

13) Poets must have a root: a sentimental root, a cultural root, a root of thought, and a poetic root, among others. China is a poetic nation, and there is no shortage of great people and gifted poets in its history. Sadly, today those interested in the study of poetry are limited. There are not many people placing importance on Chinese poetry, choosing instead to imitate more international styles, leading them to become regrettably rootless.

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