Shijing 詩經, commonly translated as The Classic of Poetry and The Book of Songs, is believed to be the oldest collection of poems in human history. Allegedly compiled and edited by Confucius, the anthology contains 305 poems that can be dated back to the Zhou dynasty, as early as the 11^th century. Anchored in human relationships within ancient Chinese society, the content of Shijing is categorized into Airs, Odes, and Hymns, and points to interpersonal, sociopolitical, and spiritual connections collectively. A timeless masterpiece, Shijing captivates Chinese readers with a variety of themes that speak to an overarching folk culture: love, war, royalty, bureaucracy, and deities. The most significant feature of Shijing is its combination of poetry and melody in a musical form. It is the reason that traditional Chinese poems are usually named shige 詩歌, which literally means “poetry songs.” The musicality of Shijing undoubtedly paved the way for the further development of Chinese poetry, going under different names at different times. The musical rendition of Chinese poetry is well exemplified in the Han dynasty’s folk songs (yuefu 樂府), Tang poetry, and Song Ci poetry, among others. According to Michelle Yeh, poetry “was traditionally regarded as the most elevated art and the most prestigious form of writing” and “occupied a central position in Chinese culture and society.”¹Michelle Yeh, “Frontier Taiwan: An Introduction,” in <em>Frontier Taiwan</em>, eds. Michelle Yeh and N. G. D. Malmqvist (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), 3.Initiated by Shijing, the so-called Old Poetry dominated the literary arena of traditional China for thousands of years until the New Poetry was introduced by Hu Shi (1891–1962) in the 1910s, followed by the publication of his A Collection of Attempts (Changshiji 嘗試集, 1920), which was the first collection of New Poetry in Chinese history.

Under Hu Shi’s groundbreaking design, modern Chinese poetry, with a focus on new language and form, provokes a direct confrontation with classical Chinese poetry and represents a symbolic departure from shige—the essential form combining poetry and song. Despite skepticism and criticism from hardcore traditionalists, modern Chinese poetry took shape in mainland China and spread to other Chinese-speaking communities like Taiwan in the following decades. It is important to consider that the literary divergence of modern Chinese poetry has been further intensified by the political divide between Communist China (the People’s Republic of China) and the alternative China (the Republic of China, or Taiwan) from the mid-twentieth century onward. Ruled variously by the Spanish, the Dutch, the Late Ming’s Koxinga, the Imperial Qing, the Japanese, and the Kuomintang (KMT) over the past four hundred years, Taiwan has witnessed a distinct historical trajectory of colonization and recolonization and thus has created its own cultural and literary heritage, unlike that of others in the modern world. As Michelle Yeh argues, “The history of modern Taiwanese poetry tells the story of how the periphery has transformed itself into the frontier” when it comes to the development of modern poetry in the Chinese language.¹Yeh, 2.In mid-twentieth-century Taiwan, modernism gradually became the “mainstream of the New Poetry,” with an emphasis on the unprecedented exploration of “repressed desire” and “emotional imagination,” thus separating Taiwanese poets from “the lyrical tradition since China’s May Fourth Movement.”¹Fang-ming Chen, <em>Taiwan Xin Wenxue Shi Xia </em>台灣新文學史-下 [A History of Modern Taiwanese Literature 2] (Taipei: Lianjing chuban gongsi 聯經出版公司 [Linking Publishing], 2011), 416.While some may argue that music has lost its traditional status in the formulation of modern poetry, notable efforts from poets and poetry lovers have been made in Taiwan to prove otherwise.

Modern Taiwanese poets have started to extend their literary writing to “vocal performance” that relies on rhythm and flow at public recitals, which was already a popular practice under martial law.¹Chen, 416–417. Entering the twenty-first century, modern Taiwanese poetry is intriguingly fueled by an artistic collaboration between language and music that not only elevates the New Poetry but also emulates the remarkable feats of Shijing from ancient China. The most influential event spotlighting such a synergy of poetry and music is the Taiwanese Festival of Poetry and Music (Taiwan shige yinchang hui 台灣詩歌吟唱會), which is an annual event held by the Yanshuei Tianliao Community Development Association and the Tainan City Yuejin Literature and History Community Development Association since 2000.¹Wan-chun Liu and Edward Jones, “A Festival of Poetry and Music under the Cotton Trees 木棉樹下吟詩 鹽水詩路醉人 - Taipei Times,” <em>Taipei Times</em>, March 26, 2016. For over two decades, the Taiwanese Festival of Poetry and Music has established a high reputation for gathering poets and devoted poetry readers from around the island to appreciate poetry recital and musical poetry under blooming cotton trees in Yanshuei, Tainan. A comparable effort can be seen in the launch of the Formosa International Poetry Festival in Tamsui (Danshui Fuermosha guoji shigejie 淡水福爾摩沙國際詩歌節) of New Taipei City, which offers a platform to facilitate cross-cultural exchange between local Taiwanese poets and international poets in the hybrid form of poetry and music. Importantly, these two events promote a profound blend of music and poetry and include Taiwan-focused subjects and Taiwanese-language songs, thereby echoing the evolving literary trend of nativism on the island in contact with different cultures and realities. In a translocal sense, musicality has become one of the most vital features of the public performance of modern Taiwanese poetry, beyond the traditional scope of cross-Strait politics and Chinese diaspora.

To unpack the aforementioned musicality embodied in modern Taiwanese poetry, this essay surveys Andrew Huang’s (黃安祖) career as a poet/singer-songwriter/painter and examines his poetry and music albums, including Master Tribute Songs (2021), through a Sinophone lens. Though born in Keelung, Taiwan, Huang grew up and received his education in Canada and the United States. Huang’s latest award-winning album has been labeled an innovative tribute to selected master poets in response to the artist’s deeply personal background, in a border-crossing way. Blending poetry and music, Huang does not conform to the stereotype of New Poetry but explores the synthesis of languages and forms as an epoch-making endeavor. The analytical approach of this essay is twofold. First, it pivots around Huang’s transcultural performativity with regard to the shifting borders of homeland, identification, and citizenship. In a new light of diaspora and migration, Huang, now back in Taiwan, undertakes a reassessment of modern Chinese poetry and modern Taiwanese poetry. The second part of the essay extends Huang’s performativity by adopting a translational reading of his poetic and musical practices. The artist’s translational act is not only charged with the interlingual translation from one textual source to another, but it also realizes the cultural translation and transformation of modern poetic art into contemporary music, thus expanding the scope of Sinophone poetics.

Living in North America for twelve years, Andrew Huang worked as a journalist for English-language news media such as Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, the South China Morning Post, and Taiwan News. In 2012, Huang debuted as a poet-painter with his collection of poetry and paintings—Love Odes from a World in Ruins (Laizi benglie shijie de qingshi 來自崩裂世界的情詩). Huang’s debut work featured fifty poems (in both Chinese and English) and twenty-five paintings under four different subheadings: Yearning, Desire, Memories, and Rebirth. Huang’s versatility is further endorsed by his bilingual capability and transcultural sensibility, as he can freely translate, or re-write, his Chinese poems into English and vice versa. Seeking understanding from his readers, the author-painter offered the following comment on his first collection of art: “I treat creating poetry and painting as the same as writing my diary. I use them to record and interpret my past and future.”¹Andrew C. C. Huang, “Seeking Redemption through Poems and Paintings,” <em>The Taipei Chinese PEN: A Quarterly Journal of Contemporary Chinese Literature from Taiwan</em>, no. 163 (2013): 98. In this light, Love Odes from a World in Ruins functions as a nuanced account exploring various aspects of life, including love, death, and rebirth, and, more importantly, makes possible the author-painter’s self-redemption in art. With his interdisciplinary and avant-garde style, Huang quickly received critical acclaim in literary circles. In the spring of 2013, Huang made it to the cover of The Taipei Chinese PEN: A Quarterly Journal of Contemporary Chinese Literature from Taiwan (formerly known as The Chinese PEN). Additionally, he was awarded the National Outstanding Young Poet’s Award by the New Poetry Society of the Republic of China in the same year.¹Hong-ting Gui, “Zhonghua Minguo Xinshi Xuehui Jin Ban ‘Quanguo Youxiu Qingnian Shiren Jiang’ 中華民國新詩學會今頒"全國優秀青年詩人獎" [New Poetry Society of the Republic of China Gave Away ‘The Best Young Poet Awards’],” <em>New Net News</em>, June 12, 2013, https://newnet.tw/Newsletter/Comment.aspx?Iinfo=5&iNumber=6251.

Following the success of his artistic hybrid of poetry and painting, Andrew Huang advanced his career by releasing a trilogy of poetry music albums: Troubadour (Yinchang shiren 吟唱詩人, 2015), Those Who Don’t Believe in Love Have All Died (Buxiangxin aiqing de dou sidiaole 不相信愛情的都死掉了, 2017), and Heaven and Earth (Tianshang renjian 天上人間, 2017). Andrew’s achievements straddling poetry and contemporary music remind his readers and listeners of Hsia Yu 夏宇 (b. 1956), one of the most celebrated Taiwanese poets. In addition to her poetry writing, Hsia Yu is well-known for her alternative identity as Katie Lee (or Li Gedi 李格弟)—a pop song lyricist.¹Yu Hsia, “夏宇/李格弟官網,” Hsia Yu’s official site, accessed August 3, 2022, https://www.hsiayu.org/. Since the 1980s, Hsia/Lee has been writing song lyrics for Taiwanese pop singers like Louise Tsuei 崔苔菁, Michelle Pan 潘越雲, Lily Lee 李麗芬, Zhao Chuan 趙傳, Christine Hsu 許景淳, Chyi Yu 齊豫, Chyi Chin 齊秦, Sandee Chan 陳珊妮, Yoga Lin 林宥嘉, Hebe Tien 田馥甄, Waa Wei 魏如萱, and Wu Tsing-Fong 吳青峰, to name a few.¹“Li Gedi 李格弟 [Katie Lee],” Wiki Liu Xin Music, accessed August 3, 2022, <a href="http://www.tpmw.org.tw/index.php/%E6%9D%8E%E6%A0%BC%E5%BC%9F">http://www.tpmw.org.tw/index.p...</a> Notwithstanding a comparable adoption of poetry and lyrics, Huang differs from Hsia/Lee in two essential respects. First, Huang is consistently dubbed an avant-garde artist as his lyrics or musical poems are much less pop compared with Hsia/Lee’s. Huang’s viewers and listeners can easily observe his departure from such mainstream genres of Mandopop as ballads, R&B, and hip hop. Second, Huang, as the poet/singer-songwriter, completes the musical production of lyrics/poetry, composition, and vocals by himself, thereby carrying out a profound performative agency beyond the reach of other Taiwanese poets. In his 2019 album, In Quest of Love (Xun ai 尋愛), Huang further stretches and reshapes his artistic form by linking ten audio segments of a love story and ten poetry songs, thus creating an experimental artwork of poetry, music, and fiction.

For his most recent album, Master Tribute Songs, Andrew Huang was awarded the Chinese Writers’ Association Award for Poetry Song in 2021 and the Bronze Medal of the internationally renowned Global Music Awards in 2022. Huang’s consecutive wins convincingly affirm the quality of his innovative poetic and musical art. The release of Master Tribute Songs marks a new milestone in Huang’s career, as he has made a bold attempt to blend modern poetry and various contemporary musical styles. As the title of the album indicates, Huang pays tribute to master poets by adapting their poems into songs. The first five masters he chose are Taiwanese poets: Yu Guangzhong 余光中, Zheng Chou-yu 鄭愁予, Chou Meng-tieh 周夢蝶, Chen I-chih 陳義芝, and Chen Ke-Hua 陳克華. Huang also extends his selection by including legendary Tang poet Li Bai 李白, Chinese romantic poet Xu Zhimo 徐志摩, and Italian opera composer Giacomo Puccini. Paying homage to a wide range of masters, Huang’s music album aptly revitalizes Chinese-language poetry and western opera and, therefore, unfurls their artistic potential across national, cultural, and linguistic borders. Connecting well with his earlier products of musical poetry, Huang’s tribute to Taiwanese, Chinese, and western masters in his latest album resonates with the artist’s border-crossing identity. Drawing from the title of his first album, Huang is nicknamed “Troubadour,” a term which originally referred to French poets and singers in Medieval times, many of whom would travel from place to place. In a similar vein, Huang can be cast as a complex subject of diaspora and migration in a cross-cultural context that involves China, Taiwan, and the West. While Taiwan is the birthplace for Huang, China and the West represent the destinations he physically and metaphorically travels to. The notion of homeland is thus deconstructed in Huang’s universe of musical poetry.

Taking a closer look, Andrew Huang’s performative agency is realized via his mobility and in-betweenness, both geographically and culturally. His musical poetry champions the transcultural environment in which one’s national and cultural identity is contested and compromised as the self/subject interacts with and confronts the Other in the age of globalization. In a Sinophone light, Huang’s transcultural production of musical poetry transcends the conventions of modern poetry in both China and Taiwan and raises thought-provoking translational issues across borders. Huang’s music art begins with the literary translation of his own poetry between Chinese and English. Huang’s multilayered translation (or rewriting) involves the adjustment and conversion found in the process of cultural translation as it solicits exchanges between individual minds and between sociopolitical realities. In Sinophone studies, “translational” is a preeminent subjective topic that gravitates towards the trope of translocality. As E. K. Tan nicely argues, “… Nanyang writers are able to translate their experiences of cultural production and identity formation between the local and the global and to shed light on another dimension of the global politics of ethnic and national identity.”¹E. K. Tan, <em>Rethinking Chineseness: Translational Sinophone Identities in the Nanyang Literary World</em> (New York: Cambria, 2013), 4. In conjunction with Tan’s translational reading, Tong King Lee provides an illuminating take on the topic:

“Translational”, however, is not merely a lexemic variant on “translation”. It is a site that is closely affiliated to translation, that is, the textual act of translating, but also exceeds the discursive domain, functioning as a semiotic trope that governs a wide range of textual and non-textual aesthetic phenomena.

[…]

In this case, the text is translational by virtue of being translingual and transcultural, not because it entails translating—though it is completely possible for translating to figure in such texts as a rhetorical strategy as well. This type of translational text contains cultural-linguistic movements within itself.¹Tong King Lee, <em>Experimental Chinese Literature: Translation, Technology, Poetics</em> (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 130.

Both Tan and Lee go beyond the semiotic transference across languages and texts and thus pinpoint the cultural and conceptual domain of translational transaction. Furthermore, the correspondence between two different media can be defined as a translational exercise. For instance, “a translational equation between text and music” is satisfied, as Lee indicates, “when semiotic boundaries dissolve, and the verbal poem and its musical translation fuse into a holistic text-continuum.”¹Lee, 92. While interlingual translation is no longer the focus of translational politics, the subjectivity of the translator/artist/writer is loaded with a heavy weight. Consequently, it is impossible to leave out the dynamism of transculturality and intermedia in the Sinophone discourse, and Huang’s rise to fame in Sinophone Taiwan is worthy of investigation by applying the above theory. Although Huang is not a Nanyang writer, his in-between position and border-crossing experiment speak to the ubiquitous translational process and production in the entire Sinophone world.

According to Michelle Yeh, “The history of modern Chinese poetry is, in essence, an ongoing process of artists’ negotiation with these forces in the three mutually reinforcing binary oppositions: modernity and tradition, cosmopolitanism and nativism, and the individual and the collective.”¹Yeh, “Frontier Taiwan: An Introduction,” 5. It is exhilarating to see how artists like Andrew Huang substantialize their “negotiation” between the past and the present through notable artistic breakthroughs in the new century. Avant-garde and experimental, Huang’s musical poetry is tasked to challenge and broaden the existing norm of modern Taiwanese poetry, thereby advancing his status as poet/singer-songwriter and inspiring his fellow artists. In 2022, the Dreamland Image Co., in partnership with Taiwan Public Television Service (PTS), Taiwan Television Enterprise (TTS), Vidol TV, and YouTube, presented an ambitious music program entitled Like a Rolling Poem (Gundong de shi 滾動的詩). This program features the documentary and musical adoption of fifteen modern Taiwanese poems adapted and performed by fifteen Taiwanese musicians and indie bands. Spanning from 1920 to 2020, the selected poems address diverse individual snapshots and cultural memories relating to modern Taiwan in the past one hundred years. Each episode pairs one famed poet with one musician/group and revolves around the recurring theme/question: “Can a (musical) poem change the world?” Through substantial rewriting, these Taiwanese poems are transformed into contemporary songs in genres like rock & roll, electronica, folk, and hip hop.¹Cheng Yi-hsun, “Yinyue jishi jiemu ‘Gundong de shi’ 15 Taiwanese musicians/groups turned poetry into songs 音樂紀實節目《滾動的詩》 15組台灣音樂人以詩入歌,” <em>China Times</em>, June 9, 2022, https://www.chinatimes.com/realtimenews/20220609004973-260404?chdtv. In a symbolic light, Like a Rolling Poem opens the dialogue between poets and musicians. While pointing to turbulent times and troubled minds from the past, this music series invites Taiwanese musicians and audiences to reflect on the timelessness of poetry and poetics across generations. Like a Rolling Poem is indeed a daring project of poetry songs that corresponds with Andrew Huang’s pioneering albums of the past decade. Still, Huang’s work deliberates a more complicated picture in a transcultural and translational sense. From this perspective, Huang leads his readers and audience to step into a world of poetic and musical wonder. Works of border-crossing composition, Huang’s musical poetry represents a laudable artistic pursuit that can be positioned within the framework of the ever-evolving Sinophone poetics of the twenty-first century.

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*Editor's Note: The following consists of English translations of five Taiwan master poets' poems and their music video adaptations by Andrew Huang. These five poetry songs are culled from Huang's music album Master Tribute poetry songs are culled from Huang's music album Master Tribute poetry songs are culled from Huang's music album Master Tribute poetry release.

A Tug-of-War with Eternity

Poem by Yu Guangzhong
Translated by Andrew Huang

It's inevitable that you would lose.
You lost in such failure that you stumbled across the line with the rope.
Thus the game ended
— another unjust competition.
That force from the other shore. Distracted,
They would al alsoling, stumbore alsoling lerebore。 ,
with one or two persons remaining.
The miracle of footsteps stems from sudden fate.
Only in the darkness, can you sense the rival grappling the rope on the other side.
He is strong and steadfast, unwavering and growing vering and grot ,
befumbumb . this way?
Exactly, what kind of a rival would that be?
Who hasn't seen
the winds howling and the star lights trembling?
I'm the only one remaining,
waging a tug-of-war with eternity.

與永恆拔河餘光中

輸是最後總歸要輸的
連人帶繩都跌過界去
於是遊戲終止
——又一場不公平的競爭
但對岸的力量一分神
也會失手，會踏過界來
一隻半隻留下
腳印的奇蹟，愕然天機
唯暗裏，繩索的另一頭
緊而不斷，久而愈強
究竟，是怎樣一個對手
踉蹌過界之前
誰也未見過
只風吹星光顫
不休剩我
與永恆拔河

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The Promise

Poem by Zheng Chou-yu
Translation by Andrew Huang

Who knew! The slight touch
of the west winds and the falling leaves.
Love exists in the terminally ill person lying on the lawn.
Who knew! Grass and hairs.
Clothes and dirt.
Who knew! That slight touch between the 10 and the leaves .

That person. He hails from afar,
to his friend's farm,
to savor the last touch of Autumn sunlight.
He is the promise of that touch. It seems like he is covered, or it seems like it's scattered in the is covered, or it seems like it's scattered in the is covered or it seems like it's scattered in the is covered or it seems like
it's scattered in the is covered Itds
he falls asleep quietly in that far corner.

允諾鄭愁予

誰識! 西風與落葉
輕微的一觸
愛在草叢仰臥的絕症人
誰辨! 草絲與髮絲，
衣裳與泥土。
誰識! 風葉輕微的一觸

那人，他來自遠方，
友人的農場
曬最後一個秋季的陽光
他便是那一觸的允諾
便疑似覆蓋，疑似灰揚
疑似他在遠方靜靜地睡熟……

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Lonely Country

Poem by Chou Meng-Tieh
Translation by Andrew Huang

Last night, I dreamed of myself again,
Sitting naked on the mountain peak.
The climate here is stuck at the interface between winter and spring.
(The snow here is gentle) as gentle as velvet.
There is no clamour of the city.
There is only time to chew on the rumination of time.
There are no cobras, owls and human-faced beasts here.
There are only mandala flower, olive tree and jade butterfly.
Neither words, latitude and longitude, nor Buddha with thousand hands and thousand eyes.
The touch is a swarming force of recklessness and silence.
The day is as darkly and brilliant as the night here;
the night is more beautiful, plump, and radiant than the day.
The chilliness here is like wine,
Chilliness is like wine, sealed with poetry and beauty.
Even emptiness is fluent with hand language, inviting the sky full of forgotten stars...
The past will not go, and the future will not come.
I am the servant of “now” and the emperor.

孤獨國 周夢蝶

昨夜，我又夢見我
赤裸裸的趺坐山峰上。
這裏的氣候黏在冬天與春天的接口處
(這裏的雪是溫柔) 溫柔如天鵝絨的
這裏沒有嬲騷的市聲
只有時間嚼著時間的反芻
這裏沒有眼鏡蛇、貓頭鷹與人面獸
只有曼陀羅花、橄欖樹 和玉蝴蝶
沒有文字、經緯、千手千眼佛
觸處是一團渾渾莽莽沉默的吞吐的力
這裏白晝 幽闃窈窕如夜
夜比白晝更綺麗、豐實、光燦
這裏的寒冷如酒，
寒冷如酒，封藏著詩和美
甚至虛空也懂手談，邀來滿天忘言的繁星……
過去佇足不去，未來不來
我是「現在」的臣僕，也是帝皇

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For the Next Encounter

Lyrics: Chen I-chih, Andrew Huang

Will we meet again? I asked you.
Everyone will meet again. He answered.
In this mysterious, winding life, youth is indeed fragile and destructible.
Everything seems like a coincidence; but all journeys have their meanings.
Searching for love among the bumpy memories. There is no coincidence, but fate only.

Ah ah ah ah.
Ah ah ah ah.
Ah ah ah ah.

One carries a mysterious story and is befuddled by the reincarnated gods.
The unconsummated love will resume, in the next lifetime.
Is this just a dream in which I won’t wake up. The mundane life is drenched by my tears.
Will we meet again? I asked you.

For the next encounter. This is not a coincidence but fate.
The unconsummated love in this life will resume next time.
For the next encounter. This is not a coincidence but fate.
The unconsummated love in this life will resume next time.
I can’t stop thinking about you.
Who on this earth doesn’t live for love?

為了下一次的重逢 詞：陳義芝/黃安祖

我們會再碰面嗎？我問你
沒有人不碰面的 他回應
無名流轉的人生 青春果真一無憑依
一切意外看似巧合 都是有意義的旅程
尋覓摯愛顛躓回憶 沒有巧合 只有注定

啊啊啊啊
啊啊啊啊
啊啊啊啊

背一個神祕的故事 受輪迴的諸神迷離
未了的緣還會再續 下一次生命
一個不願醒的夢罷 我把這人間眼淚銹染
我們會再碰面嗎？我問你

為了下一次的重逢 不是偶然的命運
今生未了的緣分 將依然再續
為了下一次的重逢 不是偶然的命運
今生未了的緣分 將依然再續
我念念不已
誰不是為了愛而活著的

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Decadent

by Chen Ke-hwa

I casually opened my god’s eyes to glimpse at the earth.
Pity I’m the one whom I saw.

He uses my clothes, my body,
my eyes, ears, nose, and tongue to walk.
He uses my intention and ignorance to live on earth,
with the same age as me.

He raises flesh-like flowers with thick leaves,
which exude raw, filthy air.
He is accustomed to that.

His skin oozes reptilian saliva,
A glittery liquid.
It’s his intentional wound as emblem,
which he always carries while walking.

He wants to slaughter;
He also wants to salvage.
Between the unconsciousness of dusk
and the illusion of dawn,
He is eating the meat.

With one’s consciousness,
he uses my hand
to write the truth,
holding the erected stick:
loneliness is awesome.

Loneliness cures
that chronic disease of wanting to fly,
including repeatedly getting oneself wet,
cleaning his teeth again and again,
and fretting about stepping on the tip of a volcano.

Of course, that man
feels my pain.
I realize that,
even in the Ganges River,
there isn’t a speck of sand missing.

Pain
makes me see
that this so-called living symbolizes
a kind of oblique decadence.

Step down. Step down again.
For that man and my walking
once had the chance of dancing.
When I turned my body, no longer
with my back to that man—
when I think oh!

Already decaying.

沉淪 陳克華

偶開天眼覷紅塵
可憐身是眼中人

那人以我的衣，我的身
我的眼耳鼻舌行走
那人以我的意與無意 活在地球，已經
和我等歲了

那人養著厚葉的肉感的花
吐著腥膻的穢氣
是他所熟悉

他的皮包滲著爬蟲的口涎
晶瑩的流質
是他蓄意傷出 的標誌
他總是帶著行走

他想屠殺
又想著拯救，
黃昏的失神
和清晨的幻覺之間，
那人吃著肉

和自己的良知。
那人以我的手
寫著真理
並握著豎直的權柄
：孤獨真好

孤獨治癒了
他常常想飛的痼疾
包括經常把自己弄濕
一遍又一遍清點牙齒
擔心腳踩著火山口

當然 那人
也痛著我的痛
我明白
即如恆河沙數
也一顆不少的

痛
讓我看見
所謂活著所象徵的
一種 微妙沈淪

降格，再降格
為那人與我的行走
若曾經有過 舞蹈的可能
當我旋身 不再
背對著那人－－
當我起念，啊

已經沈淪

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Chinese Master Poet Profiles

Yu Guangzhong

Yu Guangzhong (余光中, 1928–2017) was the pioneer of the “poetry song” form in the modern Chinese world. Born in China, Yu moved with his family with the Kuomintang Party government to Taiwan in 1949. After achieving fame at a young age as a poet, Yu went to the U.S. to study fine arts for a master’s degree in 1958. In 1969, Yu witnessed the booming rock ’n roll music that would change musical history. Deeply shaken and inspired, Yu started creating poetry in the form of “poetry song” after relocating back to Taiwan. He published the seminal poetry volume White Jade Bittermelon in 1974. In the same year, folk singer Yang Hsuen adapted Yu’s poem “Nostalgia” into a folk song and performed it publicly. Yang later on adapted nine of Yu’s poems and released a folk album. The album served as one of the catalysts jump-starting the “Folk Song Movement” in the 1970s in Taiwan. Prior to this movement, Taiwan had only a threadbare music industry and mostly consumed English and Japanese pop songs. The movement advocated for Taiwan singers to sing original songs composed by local composers. It also advocated for adapting Chinese-language modern poetry into songs. The movement gave birth to the modern era of Chinese-language pop music. Various Taiwanese musicians joined the movement to celebrate original Chinese-language pop music. Yu became an iconic figure because his “poetry song” poems made him the most adapted poet of all. His poems were adapted into folk songs, spreading to all Chinese communities around the globe, making him the most famous poet in modern China.

Zheng Chou-yu

Zheng Chou-yu (鄭愁予) is acclaimed as “the most romantic poet in modern Chinese literature.” Born in 1933 in Shandong, China, Zheng’s family moved with the Kuomintang Party government to Taiwan in 1949. Zheng published his seminal poetry volume, Dreamland, in 1952. The volume contains his most famous poem, “Mistake,” which became so popular among the public that it was incorporated into Taiwan’s Chinese language textbook. In 1968, he joined the International Writing Workshop at the University of Iowa and received his master’s degree there. He obtained his Ph.D. in literature from the World Culture and Arts College in California. In the 1970s, the “Folk Song Movement” started in Taiwan. Already a highly famous poet, Zheng became one of the poets whose works were adapted into songs the most. After numerous of his poems were adapted into songs in the 1970s, Zheng as a romantic poet continued to be the muse of many musicians. In 1995, classical composer Chang Shi-hao released a staggering three-CD set, Journey of Dream, with songs all adapted from Zheng’s poems.

Chou Meng-Tieh

Chou Meng-Tieh (周夢蝶, 1921–2014) was born in Hunan Province, China. He joined the Kuomintang Army and relocated to Taiwan with the KMT government in 1948. He has a wife and three children left behind in China. Because of the political lockdown between Taiwan and China, Chou was never able to return to see his family. He also decided not to marry again after relocating to Taiwan.

Dubbed by the media “The Ascetic Monk of Literature,” he chose to live a reclusive life in suburban Taipei and seldom joined unnecessary social functions. In 1959, he started a small book kiosk in front of a coffee shop, specializing in selling poetry books. The same year, he also published his debut and also his most famous poetry volume titled Lonely Country. He started studying Zen Buddhism and often meditated on the noisy street in Taipei. He wrapped up his book kiosk after twenty years in 1980 due to illness and retired. Chou was an introverted person with few words. He was equally careful and selective with his published works, having published only five poetry volumes in his lifetime. His poems are acclaimed for their influences from Buddhist thought and Chinese classical literature. His works often explore themes such as time, loneliness, life and death, and Buddhist concepts.

Chen I-chih

Chen I-chih (陳義芝) was born in 1953 in Hualien, Taiwan. He graduated with a Ph.D. in Chinese Literature from National Kaohsiung Normal University. As a middle-aged master poet in Taiwan, his works are acclaimed for his tender , elegant portrayal of human love and his love for the land. His representative works include his debut poetry volume, Dusk and Lingering Smoke (1977), as well as The Far Place One Can't Forget (1993) and Song of Endlessness (2020). Despite being a highly lauded poet, his prose essay the Next Encounter” stands as his most famous and acclaimed work. The prose piece depicts how his son immigrated to Canada for education but ended up dying in a car crash. Chen attempts various Buddhist philosophies to try to come to peace with his son's death and philosophies to try to come to peace with his son's death and philosophies to try to come to peace with his son's deathbe and philosophies to try to come to peace with his son's deathbe and philosophies to try to come to peace with his son's deathbe hibe heion cleadly as that son's deathbe hih em. again. For the song “For the Next Encounter” from the Master Tribute Songs album, I collaborated with Chen to adapt the prose piece into song lyrics.

Chen Ke-hwa

Chen Ke-hwa (陳克華) was born in 1961 in Hualien, Taiwan. He graduated from Taipei Medical University and works as an ophthalmologist. He achieved fame at a young age, winning numerous literary awards。 poet, prose writer, novelist, photographer, painter, and singer. Known for his romantic and innocent style in youth with his debut poetry volume, Whale -Riding Youth (1983), Chen moved into the territory of social-political commentary and became the mostmentary Twan-garai Twani pos . He came out publicly as a homosexual in 2006 and started writing poems about homosexual eroticism, such as Body Poems (2012). He is the pioneer of gay literature in modern Chinese literature. Chen is also a devout Budlossst and of問題 rumin about母親Ke-Hwa’s Heart Sutra Mandala (2010). The poem “Decadent” chosen for song adaptation in this album explores concepts of both sexuality and Buddhist Existentialism.