Text | Zhang Congzhi
In the 1950s and 1960s, Taiwan's special political, economic and social environment gave birth to the popular modernist literature. On this isolated island overlooking the mainland, society is shrouded in an atmosphere of repression, frustration and even despair, as if suffering from an incurable spiritual wound, which is projected into literary works and echoes the modern literary and artistic trends of the post-war Western world, providing the soil for the modernist experiment in Taiwan's literary circles. In the pen of sensitive poets, Taiwan's modern poetry prospered in the face of adversity and became a bright star in Taiwanese literature of that era.
In the early 1950s, Taiwan's poetry circles successively established three poetry societies with modernist tendencies - the Modern Poetry Society, the Blue Star Poetry Society and the Genesis Poetry Society, which gathered a large number of poets and firmly occupied the discourse power of Taiwan's modern poetry in the following decades through the establishment of poetry periodicals and the holding of poetry activities, forming a three-legged pattern, which also laid the foundation for the comprehensive bloom of Taiwanese poetry in the future.
Around the content and form of modern poetry, the three major poetry societies have their own different propositions, at different stages of development also have different pursuits, coupled with the different styles and interests of each poet, therefore, poetry clubs often break out of various scales of controversy, such large and small controversies also in the second half of the last century became a clear proof of the vitality of Taiwan's literary circles, while annotating the growth of Taiwanese literature, especially poetry art.
Despite differences, in some periods, Taiwan's modern poetry creation represented by the three major poetry societies still showed common characteristics, such as strong "self-expression", anti-rational and subconscious lyricism, the pursuit of complex and complex imagery, the artistic pursuit of seeking innovation and change, etc. From the poets' poems, the common national psychology and national cultural imprints can also be excavated.
<h1>Modern Poetry Society</h1>
In February 1953, Ji Xian took the lead in founding the Modern Poetry Quarterly Magazine and published the poetry journal "Modern Poetry". On January 15, 1956, Ji Xian, Ye Ni, Zheng Shuoyu, Luo Xing, Yang Yunda, Lin Ling, Ji Hong, Lin Hengtai and nine others held the "First Annual Meeting of Modern Poets" at the Taipei City People's Group Activity Center, announcing the official establishment of the "Modernist" and Modern Poetry Society.
The poetry club's proposition is the "six creeds of modernism" put forward by Ji Xian, that is, "modernism" is "a group of modernists that embrace the spirit and elements of all emerging poetic schools since Portelle", clearly proposing that "new poetry is a horizontal transplantation, not a vertical inheritance", believing that new poetry is "the exploration of the new continent of poetry, the development of the virgin land of poetry", and takes "the intellectuality of poetry", "the purity of poetry" and "the support for freedom and democracy" as the goal of pursuit.
As soon as the above propositions were put forward, they were violently criticized as a total Westernization, trying to cut off the Chinese literary tradition. However, it can be seen from the magazine "Modern Poetry" published by the Modern Poetry Society that Ji Xian and others did not strictly abide by this creed, but adopted a relatively tolerant attitude and accommodated poems of different styles and forms, which played a positive role in promoting the innovation of modern poetry and the cultivation of new people.
Representative poets: Ji Xian, Zheng Shuyu
Ji Xian (1913~2013), formerly known as Lu Yue, used the pen name Louise, whose ancestral home was Shaanxi, and was born in 1913 in Qingyuan County, Hebei Province. In 1929, he began to publish poems, and graduated from Suzhou Academy of Fine Arts in 1933 and compiled his own "Yishi Poetry Collection". In 1936, he traveled east to Japan, and after returning to China, he founded the monthly magazine "New Poems" with Dai Wangshu and others. After the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japan, it circulated in Hankou, Changsha, Kunming, Hong Kong and other places, and served as a Japanese translator for the "International News Agency" and edited "Poetry Territory". After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, he began to write under the pseudonym Ji Xian. In 1948, he went to Taiwan and retired after teaching at Taipei Chenggong Middle School for 25 years. In 1953, he founded and edited the quarterly magazine "Modern Poetry", and in 1956, he founded the Modern Poetry Society. He moved to the United States in 1976 and remained at home in California until his death in 2013.
Ji Xian is one of the three elders of Taiwanese poetry (the other two are Qin Zihao and Zhong Dingwen) and enjoys a high reputation in Taiwanese poetry. He not only created a wealth of ideas, but also made achievements in theory. He was an advocate of modernist poetry, advocating the writing of poems of "master knowledge", emphasizing "horizontal transplantation", the poetic style is bright, good at ridicule, playful, and focused on innovation, so that later scholars competed to imitate and became a banner of Taiwan's poetry circle.
Zheng Shuoyu, formerly known as Zheng Wentao, was born in 1933 in Jinan, Shandong Province. During his childhood, Zheng Shuoyu traveled with his military father to the north and south of the great river, and during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, he and his mother migrated to the interior, and began to read ancient poems under the guidance of his mother on the way to refuge.
In 1949, he went to Taiwan with his father. Graduated from Hsinchu High School. In 1956, he participated in the establishment of the Modernist Poetry Society. He graduated from Chung Hsing University in Taiwan in 1958. In 1968, he was invited to participate in the "International Writers Writing Program" of the University of Iowa. From 1990 to 1992, he was the editor-in-chief of United Literature in Taiwan.
Zheng Shuoyu's poems are known for their elegance, elegance and lyrical charm, with varied imagery, gentleness and beauty, and their own style. His poems such as "Mistakes", "Sailor's Knife", "Little Island", and "When the Fog Rises" are intoxicating, and he is often called "the prodigal poet".
<h1>Blue Star Poetry Society</h1>
In March 1954, the Blue Star Poetry Society was founded, and the founders were Qin Zihao, Yu Guangzhong, Xia Jing, Zhong Dingwen, and Deng Yupingren. In the same year, the Blue Star Weekly was opened on the page of the "Gongnong Bao", which was published once a week, edited by Qin Zihao, and handed over to Yu Guangzhong after 161 issues until it was discontinued in August 1958.
On March 30, 1962, he and his colleagues from the Blue Star Poetry Society hosted a banquet for the Philippine Literary and Art Delegation, photographed at the China Tourist Hotel in Taipei.
The Blue Star Poetry Society is the most dynamic and centripetal of the three major poetry societies, but it has never had a fixed theory or absolute creed, its organization is also very loose, its members come and go freely, more like an alliance with a salon spirit, and its pursuit of modern poetry is more reflected in the poetry it publishes. In the article "The Seventeenth Birthday", Yu Guangzhong once recalled the purpose of the Blue Star Poetry Society: "What we want to organize is essentially a poetry society that does not talk about organization. Based on this understanding, we have never elected any president, let alone adopted any outline and promoted any doctrine. Roughly speaking, our combination is a 'reaction' against the ji string. Ji Xian wants to transplant Western modern poetry into Chinese soil, and we are very opposed. Although we do not take it as our duty to directly inherit the tradition of Chinese poetry, we are not willing to rush into the so-called "horizontal transplantation". Ji Strings want to overthrow lyricism, and with the main knowledge as the principle of creation, our style is inclined to lyricism. ”
Hemorrhoid strings
From the 1950s to the 1980s, although the "Blue Star" changed a lot, it has always maintained a national lyrical style, showing the moderate side of modernism, playing a counterbalance to the relatively radical "modernism" and later "Genesis", and also making positive contributions to the development of Taiwan's modern poetry in the integration of "national" and "modern".
Representative poets: Qin Zihao, Luo Men, Xiang Ming
Qin Zihao (1912~1963), a native of Guanghan, Sichuan Province, belonged to the same generation of poets who went to Taiwan from the mainland along with Ji Xian. In 1932, he studied at sino-French University, and in 1935, he traveled to Japan to enter The Central University of Tokyo, and when he studied in Japan, he began to contact the works of the French symbolist poets Porteraire and Maramé, and under the influence of symbolism, began to create modern poetry, returned to China in the 1930s, and organized the Wenhai Poetry Society.
After arriving in Taiwan, he and Ji Xian, Zhong Dingwen, Ge Xianning and others founded the "New Poetry Weekly" on the basis of the "Zili Evening News". Hou Jixian founded the quarterly magazine "Modern Poetry", established the "Modern School", and then initiated the establishment of the "Blue Star Poetry Society" with Zhong Dingwen, Yu Guangzhong, Deng Yuping, Xia Jing and others.
Qin Zihao advocates that poetry should contain the meaning of life, and can resonate with the reader's heart, attach importance to the performance of substance and the perfection of performance, seek the ideological roots of poetry, seek new performance in accuracy, and take the completion of self-creation as the expression of style. His early poems took the lyrical route, and after moving to Taiwan, they turned to the modernist style. His poems mainly include "Ocean Poetry Copy", "Sunflower", "Gallery" and other poetry collections, as well as "The Anatomy of Poetry" and "On Modern Poetry".
Luo Men (1928~2017), formerly known as Han Rencun, was born in 1928 in Wenchang, Hainan Province. In 1948, he entered the Hangzhou Jianqiao Air Force Flight Officer School, and the following year, he went to Taiwan with the school. In 1954, her debut poem Galliblus was published in Modern Poetry. In 1955, Solomon joined the newly founded Blue Star Poetry Society.
Solomon's poems focus on the exploration of the human mind, emphasizing that the poet creates a "third nature" that is different from the first and second natures, and is accustomed to adopting a wide-angle lens of the mind to explore the inner world of modern people, and to gain insight into the aspects of human existence such as human nature, war, death, and urban civilization. The main poetry collections include "The Bottom Stream of the Ninth Day", "Tower of Death", "Invisible Chair", "Wilderness", etc., and the poetry collection "Spiritual Visit" and "Echoes of Time and Space".
Xiang Ming, formerly known as Dong Ping, was born in 1928 in Changsha, Hunan Province, graduated from a military school, and served in the military for many years. In 1949, he went to Taiwan and later joined the Blue Star Poetry Society, where he served as the editor-in-chief of the Blue Star Poetry Journal and the president of the Taiwan Poetry Quarterly. He is low-key and is known as a "Confucian poet" in Taiwan.
Published poetry collections include "Book of Rainy Days", "Wolf Smoke", "Five Strings", "Face of Youth", "Xiang Ming's Self-Selected Collection", "Remembrance of Water", etc., the poetry collection "Guest's Time and Yin Poetry Volume", and the children's poetry collection "Fireflies". Xiang Ming takes life as the source of poetry, does not pursue the strangeness in language and imagery, but strives to explore in the sense of life, insists on serious issues, and is a poet who then intervenes in reality, criticizes life, and takes into account the mission of literature and society.
<h1>Genesis Poetry Society</h1>
The Genesis Poetry Society was founded in 1954 by Taiwanese military poets such as Love, Zhang Mo and Xia Xian, and began to publish genesis poetry after its establishment. Love, Zhang Mo, and Xi Xian are known as the "Iron Triangle of Genesis". The emergence of the Genesis Poetry Journal has united a group of modern poets in Taiwan's poetry circle and formed the "Genesis Poetry Group" poetry genre.
In the early period, the Genesis Poetry Society put forward the creative line of "new national poetry", requiring the exclusion of pure rationality and pure emotions, and advocating that poetry should have a national flavor. But soon, it overturned the original creative ideas, showed an extremely avant-garde posture, promoted the poetry of Surrealism, and became a gathering place of Surrealism in the 1960s.
The "Genesis" poets, including Love and Hexin, advocated the aesthetics of pure experience, emphasized the "cosmopolitanness" of poetry, pushed modern poetry to the extreme, and played an important role in the formation of "nothingness" and "obscurity" in Taiwan's new poetry.
Representative poets: Love, Hemorrhoid
Love, formerly known as Morov, was born in 1928 in the countryside of Hengyang, Hunan, and his family moved to Hengyang City in 1938. In 1948, he was admitted to the Department of Foreign Languages of Hunan University. In 1949, the Kuomintang army recruited young people to join the army in Hunan, and Love arrived in Taiwan with the army. After entering military school, he was assigned to the Left Battalion Marine Corps after graduation. At the end of the Vietnam War, he was ordered to serve as english secretary in the Military Advisory Group in Vietnam, during which he published his work "Saigon Poetry Banknote". After returning to Taiwan, he studied at Tamkang College of Arts and Sciences, graduated in 1973, and retired in August of the same year with the rank of lieutenant colonel. He moved to Vancouver, Canada in 1996.
Love has written a lot of books, including 37 poems such as "The Wound of Time", as well as a large number of prose collections, commentaries and translations. His famous work "The Death of the Stone Chamber" was widely valued by the poetry community, and in 1982, his long poem "The Republishment of Blood" won the China Times Literary Recommendation Award. In 1999, Love's poetry collection "Magic Song" was selected as one of the classics of Taiwanese literature. In 2001, the three-thousand-line poem "Drifting Wood" was published, which shocked the Chinese poetry scene, and in the same year, it was selected as one of the top ten contemporary poets in Taiwan, ranking first.
Xie Xian, whose original name was Wang Qinglin, was born in Nanyang, Henan, and joined the Kuomintang forces in Hunan in 1949, and then arrived in Taiwan. In 1953, he entered the Film and Drama Department of Fuxinggang College, graduated the following year, and was assigned to work in the left camp military radio station. In 1962, he returned to his alma mater, Fuxinggang College, to teach "History of Chinese Dance" and "Introduction to Art". He retired from the army in 1966 with the rank of major and was invited by the U.S. Department of State to participate in a two-year visit to the University of Iowa's International Writing Program; in 1976, he went to the United States for further study and received a master's degree in East Asian Studies from the University of Wisconsin. From the following year, he was the editor-in-chief of the supplement of Taiwan's Lianhe Pao for 21 years. He is currently moving to Canada.
Her works are surreal and musical, often showing compassion, as well as the celebration of the sweetness of life, and the exploration of the dilemma of modern human life. Representative works include "Poetry of the Scabs", "The Abyss", "Salt" and other poetry collections. (References: The Rise, Controversy, Return and Reflection of Taiwanese Modernist Poetry, by Ma Dejun; Journal of Chinese University, No. 6, 1990; On "Blue Star and Its Major Poets", by Weng Guangyu; Journal of Jinan, No. 1, 1991)