“On the Brilliant and Golden Lines in Poetry” / Chen Qu Fei
Abstract
This paper explores the significance of "brilliant lines" and "golden lines" in the creation and reading of modern poetry. It argues that the memorability and transmission of a poem often rely on lines of high aesthetic value and intellectual resonance. The author defines a "brilliant line" as a poetic line that is semantically profound and worthy of contemplation, whereas a "golden line" is a higher-level brilliant line with greater suggestiveness, depth, and reflective power. Using examples from poets such as Zheng Chouyu, Guan Guan, Lo Fu, and Yu Xiuhua, the paper analyzes how brilliant and golden lines employ rhetorical devices such as metaphor, synesthesia, personification, hyperbole, and surrealism to convey an artistic quality that transcends mere description.
Furthermore, the article emphasizes that brilliant and golden lines are not mere decorative elements; they are the core components that elevate a poem to excellence. Readers who can recognize and appreciate the techniques within such lines are better able to perceive the beauty and profundity of the poetry. The author categorizes rhetorical techniques into three levels: basic (e.g., depiction, metaphor, personification), intermediate (e.g., transposition of parts of speech, manifestation, irony, pun, interplay of reality and imagination), and advanced (e.g., synesthesia, hyperbole, symbolism, surrealism, and montage), illustrating each with examples.
The paper concludes that the generation of brilliant and golden lines is not a matter of mere inspiration, but the result of poets’ accumulated life experiences, aesthetic sensibilities, and careful craftsmanship. Without such high-intensity lines, a poem risks becoming little more than prose in verse, incapable of achieving true poetic stature. In this sense, brilliant and golden lines represent not only the vitality of modern poetry but also the poet’s integrated mastery of artistic cultivation and technique.
Keywords
Brilliant Line
Golden Line
Rhetorical Techniques
Synesthesia
Surrealism
I. Why Must a Poem Contain Brilliant or Golden Lines?
Whether in traditional or modern poetry, works that endure and gain widespread recognition almost always contain "resonant" brilliant lines, and often even exquisite golden lines. Such lines do more than transform ordinary words into extraordinary ones; they imprint themselves on the reader’s mind. Even if one forgets the poem’s context, the luminous lines remain unforgettable.
A common question arises: “What happens if a poem lacks such luminous lines?” Drawing on both theory and practice, the author responds: “Such a work is at most prose in verse; it cannot even be considered prose poetry.” Most poems celebrated by readers contain at least one or two brilliant or golden lines that sustain their impact. For poets, embedding these lines is not merely a creative strategy but almost a fundamental requirement. The more brilliant and golden lines a poem contains, the higher its quality and readability.
How can we distinguish brilliant lines from golden lines? According to the author’s experience in reading and writing poetry, a brilliant line is a line of aesthetic value, semantically rich, and worthy of reflection. A golden line, by contrast, is a line that is not only luminous but also thought-provoking, with greater depth and suggestiveness—essentially, a refined, high-level brilliant line.
Examples of Brilliant Lines
Zheng Chouyu’s “Letters Beyond the Mountains” concludes:
I come from the sea,
The mountains are frozen waves
(No longer trusting the messages of the sea)
My heart’s homeward flow
No longer surges.
Here, “The mountains are frozen waves” is a brilliant line, its impact derived from a visually evocative metaphor that links “mountains” to “frozen waves,” creating aesthetic resonance.
Guan Guan’s “Cicadas”:
He takes the cicada songs
Recorded from the opposite hill this year,
And brings them out
For the children
To warm themselves by the fire.
This short poem is highly luminous. Its aesthetic appeal comes from two aspects: first, synesthesia, as the auditory cicada sounds are transformed into visual and tactile imagery of warming by fire; second, the conversion of energy, as sound waves become heat, a fantastical montage effect.
Lo Fu’s “Golden Dragon Zen Temple”:
Evening bell
Is the path down the mountain for tourists
Ferns
Chew along the white stone steps
If snow falls here
And only
A startled gray cicada
Ignites the mountain lights
One by one.
Lo Fu’s poem contains at least three brilliant lines:
- Evening bell / is the path down the mountain for tourists
A synesthetic transformation turning the auditory echo of the bell into a visual image of descending paths. - Ferns / chew along the white stone steps
Personification transforms ferns into grazing sheep, giving motion and novelty to the imagery. - A startled gray cicada / ignites the mountain lights / one by one
Surreal imagery; the improbable act draws the reader’s attention, characteristic of Lo Fu’s magical realism, a hallmark of a brilliant line.
Examples of Golden Lines
Golden lines carry not only brilliance but also depth and reflective power.
Lo Fu’s “Entering the Mountains with the Rain Sound, Yet Seeing No Rain” concludes:
Down the mountain
Still no rain
Three bitter pine nuts
Rolled along the trail to my feet
I reach out and pick them up
And they are a handful of bird songs.
Here, “I reach out and pick them up / and they are a handful of bird songs” exemplifies a golden line. The transformation is both magical and intellectually evocative, a metaphorical transmutation that surprises and delights.
Zheng Chouyu’s “Mistress”:
In a small town of bluestone, my mistress lives,
And I leave her nothing
But a patch of golden-thread chrysanthemum and a tall window,
Perhaps to let a touch of the vast sky enter,
Perhaps…
And the chrysanthemum waits patiently.
So, I always wear a blue shirt
To make her feel the season, or
The arrival of migratory birds
For I am not the type to come home often.
The concluding line, “For I am not the type to come home often”, is the brightest in the poem, fully conveying the roving, indifferent nature of the narrator—a self-revelation that resonates as a golden line.
Yu Xiuhua’s “If a Flower Blossoms”:
We are all people who have opened,
Swallowed by life and spat out, and also captured by fate.
I always cannot help persuading myself
To let a flower walk into the light, then retreat into darkness.
Reincarnated here
We gaze at each other, each fostering compassion.
Here, “We are all people who have opened / Swallowed by life and spat out, and also captured by fate” is a brilliant line reflecting life experience with poignant clarity. “I always cannot help persuading myself / To let a flower walk into the light, then retreat into darkness” is luminous, and the concluding line “Reincarnated here / We gaze at each other, each fostering compassion” is a profound golden line that invites reflection.
II. How Do Readers Identify Brilliant and Golden Lines?
When reading poetry, how does one discover which lines are luminous? Most readers say: “These lines feel different from prose,” but cannot articulate the precise reasons, as they often lack training in rhetoric. Their understanding, limited compared to that of poets or critics, is vague—knowing only the effect but not the cause.
Poets and critics, by contrast, can easily identify luminous lines: poets through familiarity with expressive techniques, critics through knowledge of rhetoric, grammar, and literary criticism. To read a poem intelligently and discern its true essence, readers must develop the ability to recognize rhetorical devices and appreciate the aesthetic and semantic depth embedded within the lines.
3. How Are Brilliant Verses or Golden Lines Created?
“Prosaic style” is a challenge every poet must confront when facing readers’ doubts. The way to address “prosaic style” is essentially to strategically employ expressive techniques (in terms of form design and semantic devices) within the lines of a poem, creating one or more brilliant verses or golden lines to achieve aesthetic enhancement. If a poet is unfamiliar with or unable to use these techniques and relies only on ordinary sensory description or basic metaphors, the resulting text will lack the texture inherent to poetry. It will degenerate into narrative prose under the guise of free verse, and even if formatted as lineated poetry, it will fail to gain acceptance from readers or recognition from critics.
Almost without exception, any widely admired contemporary poem contains at least one or two lines of aesthetic value—lines with “brightness” that evoke a feeling when read. It is hard to imagine a poem whose lines are all flat, unremarkable, or even tedious, yet still leaves a deep impression on readers and is considered a masterpiece. Most readers, upon first reading a poem, will remember primarily the sparkling golden lines or thought-provoking brilliant verses.
From the perspective of expressive techniques, lines with brightness invariably employ rhetorical devices: primarily in methods of expression, secondarily in form design. Methods of expression include:
- Elementary level: description (mimetic representation), personification, metaphor.
- Intermediate level: transposition of word class, manifestation, pun, metonymy, irony, contrast, linking, juxtaposition, intertextuality, rhetorical questioning, circumlocution, and complementarity of real and imaginary.
- Advanced level: synesthesia, hyperbole, symbolism, and surrealism.
From a semantic perspective, these bright lines are never merely simple or straightforward: they go beyond plain description or obvious similes. The aesthetic appeal and emotionally moving semantics of brilliant verses and golden lines arise precisely from these expressive techniques.
The author illustrates these techniques and analyzes the “brightness” and “value” of selected lines according to the three levels mentioned above:
(A) Elementary Expressive Techniques: Using Description, Metaphor, or Personification
1. Metaphor:
Mysterious as night / Mysterious is a demon / Mysterious, a black bat / entwining the black holes in our hearts — Hidden Ground, Song of Mystery
The poet consecutively uses three types of metaphor: “Mysterious as night” (explicit simile), “Mysterious is a demon” (implicit metaphor), and “Mysterious, a black bat” (slight metaphor); “entwining the black holes in our hearts” serves as a paraphrased metaphor. By layering metaphors from the simple to the complex, the poet deepens semantic meaning, giving the lines a rich, graduated texture.
2. Description (Mimetic Representation):
- Visual:
If there were a third bank beyond the river’s two banks / my outstretched arm would be it — Lo Fu, Yesterday’s Hedychium
Though imaginative, the visualization of “my outstretched arm as the third bank” adds a playful, intriguing element.
- Gustatory:
Only liquor distilled through artillery / is especially clear / each drop lets your tongue / taste the bayonet / passing down the throat, transforming into a streak of fire / scorching the stomach of history / whose neck and ears do not / rise shimmering / with Kinmen’s splendor / and desolation — Bai Ling, Kinmen Sorghum
The depiction of taste is vivid: the tongue tasting the bayonet illustrates the liquor’s spiciness, while the throat burning with fire conveys its strength.
3. Personification:
- Letter / shrieking as it burns / ashes remain silent / it believes / someday / someone will read it in the wind — Lo Fu, The Funeral of a Poem
Personification gives the letters on the page life, creating a surreal montage. The contrast between the shrieking letters and silent ashes produces a dynamic visual and emotional tension.
- Idle for long enough / this grand chair / still eagerly awaits / the uprightness and prestige of yesteryear — Xiang Ming, Grand Chair
The chair is anthropomorphized, nostalgically recalling past glory. The inanimate object acquires human qualities, evoking warmth and shared human memory.
(B) Intermediate Expressive Techniques: Using Transposition, Manifestation, Irony, Contrast, Pun, Intertextuality, and Complementarity of Real and Imaginary
1. Transposition (Change of Word Class):
Descending the dark dragon’s ridge / perceiving by touch / one can traverse this row of medieval leaves / brushing away the heavy night from your long lashes / and find mythology punctual / the starry sky, very “Greek” — Yu Kuang-chung, Reascending Dadushan
Here, “Greek” (originally a noun) is transposed to an adjective, conveying “romantic” and “elegant.” Rewriting it plainly as “the starry sky, very romantic and elegant” loses its poetic impact.
2. Manifestation:
- Prophecy:
The autumn border / lies under the same sunset / yellow chrysanthemums stand silently / he travels from afar, drinking soberly / outside the window is a foreign land / longing to step out, one step and homesickness arises / that beautiful homesickness, within reach / or drunk, so be it / or singing aloud / not merely standing like daisies / relying only on the border to stand — Zheng Chou-yu, Border Hotel - Suspended Imagination:
Tonight, if you lie on your side, your ears / will think they hear me / in another better or worse city / brewing tea, handling letters, walking / doors opening and closing / when you sleep more deeply, I have already walked up / the street where cold wind blows like death / mingling with countless hurried breaths / thousands of strange languages surge between us / you awaken uneasy — Hong Hong, Tonight, If You Lie on Your Side
The poet imagines distant events, creating a spatial juxtaposition without manipulating time.
3. Metonymy (Substitution):
Frowning upon the world with raised brows / all for the sake of a word “love” / ready to expend a lifetime of ink / to capture fleeting moments — Zhang Cuo, Net Chance
“Pen and ink” substitutes for the poet’s writing itself, illustrating the age-old connection between love and poetry.
4. Irony:
My brows furrow for ancient times / earnestly furrowed… / who told you to tear your lotus-colored shirt / share the nakedness / with both the favored and the unfavored men / men in tight flannel pants playing tennis, men kissed and forgotten, unfaithful men / only Maria, you don’t know / I truly worry whom my soul belongs to — Ya Xian, Madwoman
Irony conveys complex emotions: humor mixed with empathy, using the voice of the “madwoman” to critique social injustice.
5. Pun:
- Wordplay in meaning:
You are a coin / spinning and shining between fingers / gradually losing all dignity — Jian Zhengzhen, Politician - Wordplay in theme:
Every time it blooms / covered under shrub leaves / no sunlight / unlike other shrubs / cannot absorb dew / some suggest / rename and hide among grass / let fireflies add glory / isn’t it a win-win? / some poor souls / on sorrowful nights / have a star shining in the sky / but how can a flower in shade have a destined star? — Chen Qianwu, Hidden Flowers
Here, the theme of hidden flowers embodies two propositions: the plant’s inherent inability to bloom, and the oppressed, humble people who are denied sunlight. This layered meaning engages the reader in uncovering the poet’s intent.
6. Contrast
City / A new boundary appears / On one side, unarmed masses / On the other side, tear gas and gas guns /
/From Minsheng Road to Minquan Road to Minzu Road / Stalemated in the damp night – Li Min-yong, Martial Law Scenery, 29
This passage presents the contrast between "civilians and military police," that is, the "standoff between the unarmed and tear gas guns." In the later period of martial law (around the 1980s and onwards), street movements gradually emerged. This poem records this era of resistance. Today, Taiwan’s democracy has matured, and street demonstrations or protests have become commonplace. The ruling parties no longer casually deploy the military to surround and suppress protestors, and the police no longer play a repressive role; at most, they "maintain public order" or "prevent physical clashes between opposing groups of people."
7. Complement of the Abstract and the Concrete
Youth is a hurried book / We read it over and over in tears – Xi Murong, Youth
"Youth" is an abstract concept, and by linking it metaphorically to the tangible "book," a semantic "complement between the abstract and the concrete" is created, resulting in rich and thought-provoking meaning.
(3) Advanced Techniques: Use of Synesthesia, Hyperbole, Symbolism, and Surrealism
1. Synesthesia
1) Visual Transference
No matter how hard I try, I can’t recall how thin you were / Thin as a note from a flute / I try to hold you in both hands / Yet you slip through the seven holes – Lo Fu, Echo
“No matter how hard I try, I can’t recall how thin you were / Thin as a note from a flute” uses visual imagery through metaphor, turning the thinness into a flute note. This breathtaking imagination exemplifies synesthesia, transforming form into sound.
2) Auditory Transference
The man chewing gum / Pulls the accordion / Into such a long deserted alley – Lo Fu, Saigon Night Market
The accordion player walks through a deserted alley, and the music seems to stretch the alley itself. This technique, transforming sound into concrete imagery, is characteristic of Lo Fu’s work.
3) Olfactory and Gustatory Transference
At that moment, a scent of hair winds toward me / Like a spring flowing over my lips / Suddenly turning around, I see / In your eyes bloom / A pond of captivating water lilies – Lo Fu, Water’s Edge
“The scent of hair winds toward me / Like a spring flowing over my lips” transfers scent to taste in the imagination. Using sensory transference (synesthesia) stimulates creativity and association. The poet smells his wife’s hair and imagines it as a spring flowing over his lips—a method both realistic and vividly sensuous.
4) Tactile Transference
A forty-year-old woman’s breasts / Soft as / Spring grass – Hidden, Soft and Hard
Initially, this seems like a normal visual metaphor connecting two visual images. In fact, the poet uses synesthesia, transforming the tactile softness of the breasts into the visual image of a grassy field. “Spring grass” contains rich, multi-layered sensory qualities: the green is visual, the fragrance is olfactory, and the softness is tactile. Understanding this tactile-to-visual transference requires attention to all these layers, not just the visual aspect.
5) Multiple Sensory Interweaving
On days we shared an umbrella / Our laughter never got wet / Along the Qingtong-keng railway / Walking toward the mining area / One hand peeling an orange / While calculating / How fast cold rain turns to sneezes – Lo Fu, Sharing an Umbrella
This short poem exemplifies synesthesia through interweaving senses. “Our laughter never got wet” merges auditory (laughter) and tactile (wetness) imagery. “How fast cold rain turns to sneezes” reverses this, connecting tactile (cold rain) with auditory (sneeze) imagery, forming a kind of “reversible reaction” akin to physics. Lo Fu demonstrates mastery not only of hyperbole but also of sensory interweaving.
Until even a cup of tea wakes up / The story is brewed from snow, cast in fire / Spoken: like smoke – Li Jin-wen, Like Smoke
Here, the “story” is primarily auditory imagery, yet the poet uses gustatory (“brewed from snow”) and visual/tactile (“cast in fire”) adjectives as metaphor, giving the story taste, touch, and heat. Then “like smoke” combines visual and olfactory senses. In three lines, all sensory transference techniques are employed, creating rich and layered meaning.
2. Hyperbole
1) Spatial Expansion Hyperbole
A pine nut falls / Without warning / Who should catch it? / The needles or roots? / The scattered stones or the moonlight? / Or the passing wind? / Quick as thought / A pine nut falls / And the whole empty mountain catches it – Yu Kwang-chung, Summer Heat in the Mountains: “Pine Nut in the Empty Mountain”
The poet uses spatial expansion hyperbole, imagining the entire mountain catching a falling pine nut. This grand and unexpected imagery is emotionally stirring.
2) Form-Transforming Hyperbole
After the last train / The vast world shrinks to / A mile, maybe a mile and a half away / Distant dogs bark, three or two times / Only the lamp understands / At this hour, the white-haired under the lamp / Is also a sleepless dog / Guarding another kind of night / Barking at another shadow / Listen from afar – say, a hundred years away / You can hear clearly – Yu Kwang-chung, Summer Heat in the Mountains: “Sleepless Dog”
Here, the poet first uses spatial reduction hyperbole, condensing the vast world into the sound of distant dog barks, a “form-transforming hyperbole.” Then, he uses temporal measurement (a hundred years) as a surreal transformation of spatial perception.
3. Surreal Performance
1) Form-Transforming Combination
Combining images of different natures—time, space, distance, sound, light—into a deliberate composition creates new, aesthetically appealing images conveying an “unreasonable but delightful” artistic conception.
Deep in the mountains at night / All sounds seem like a dream / What is more pleasing than absolute silence? / Even the longest, busiest history / Must have a moment / That requires no dispute / But the wind, you say / The wind? That is the passing of time / Causing a slight, occasional echo – Yu Kwang-chung, Listening to the Night in the Mountains
Here, the echo triggered by the wind perceives time passing. This is not mere sensory transference; it is a form-transformed combination of intangible temporal imagery with sound.
2) Montage Editing
Montage editing breaks linear time and space, joining impossible scenes into creative new imagery. In modern Taiwanese poetry, Lo Fu uses this technique extensively.
She / Elevated by a rope / Into a highly mournful / Liaozhai
Following the flute’s sound / Searching every window / Where her faithless scholar / Went to the capital for the exam / Silent wind / She leaps into / The newly closed stitched book – Lo Fu, Female Ghost (II)
The image of a woman attempting suicide is bleak, but montage editing shifts focus to a mournful story in Liaozhai. “She leaps into the stitched book” functions like a 3D effect, beyond hyperbole and purely visual metaphor.
3) Surreal (Magical) Performance
Surrealism carries absurdity, like a magician’s trick, yet is aesthetically acceptable to readers because it offers playful undertones.
Afternoon. The pond / Crowded with pregnant water lettuce
This lonely summer / If giving birth, then a pond of frogs
Alas, the problem is / We are merely fat in illusion – Lo Fu, Afternoon of Water Lettuce
Pregnant water lettuce giving birth to a pond of frogs is absurdly surreal, not hyperbolic, yet entertaining.
After long dry weather / My heart has long cracked / If you are the undroppable tears / How I wish / To become a fish in your eyes – Lo Fu, No Rain
“I am a fish swimming in your tears” is a surreal image, evoking deep emotion without rational skepticism.
From these examples, readers see that higher-level poetic techniques yield richer, more multi-layered imagery, producing memorable lines and golden phrases. Aspiring poets can learn how such lines are crafted, reflecting the poet’s life experience and aesthetic judgment: Rome was not built in a day.
References
Original works of poets (Chinese poetry):
Zheng Chouyu: Shanwai Shu, Mistress, Border Hotel
Guan Guan: Cicada
Lo Fu: Golden Dragon Zen Temple, Into the Mountains with Rain Sounds, Yesterday’s Water Ginger Flower, Funeral of Poetry, Echo, Saigon Night Market, Water’s Edge, Sharing an Umbrella, Like Smoke, Female Ghost (II), Afternoon of Water Lettuce, No Rain
Yu Kwang-chung: Reascending Dadushan, Summer Heat in the Mountains: “Pine Nut in the Empty Mountain”, Summer Heat in the Mountains: “Sleepless Dog”, Listening to the Night in the Mountains
Yu Xiuhua: If a Flower Blossomed
Bai Ling: Kinmen Sorghum
Xiang Ming: Grand Master’s Chair
Ya Xian: Mad Woman
Zhang Cuo: Net
Jian Zhengzhen: Politician
Chen Qianwu: Hidden Flowers
Li Min-yong: Martial Law Scenery
Xi Murong: Youth
Hong Hong: Tonight You Lie Beside Me
Hidden: Mystery Song, Soft and Hard
Li Jin-wen: Like Smoke
