Chapter Two: Understanding the Fundamental Elements of Modern Poetry

Preface: The Basic Elements of Modern Poetry—Language, Imagery, and Musicality

1. The Expressive Medium of Modern Poetry: Language
   (including written language and conventionally accepted visual symbols)
2. The Formal Components of Modern Poetry: Imagery and Musicality
3. The Structure and Aesthetic Experience of Modern Poetry

In literary genres, poetry—also known as verse—has traditionally been distinguished from prose by the presence of rhyme. As the saying goes, “What has rhyme is poetry; what lacks rhyme is prose.” Poetry, lyrics, songs, fu, and qu all belong to the family of verse. Although they differ slightly in form, their fundamental components consist of language, imagery, and musicality.

Language serves as the carrier of literary works. Semantic meaning within language gives rise to imagery, while phonetic elements create musicality. The structure of modern poetry is composed of sentences and stanzas organized organically, with the purpose of expressing emotion and conveying aesthetic experience.

Section One: The Language of Modern Poetry

Modern poetry in Taiwan has its roots in Western literature. In terms of form, modern poetry stands in contrast to traditional poetry (classical regulated verse). It liberates poetry from formal constraints and is therefore also known as free verse, unconstrained by line count, word count, tonal patterns, or rhyme schemes. In terms of meaning, modern poetry differs from ancient poetry by employing contemporary language to depict modern life, and is thus also called modernist poetry.

Freedom in both form and language has greatly expanded the scope and applications of modern poetry. Formally, various subgenres have emerged, such as visual poetry, connect-the-dots poetry, and fill-in-the-blank poetry. Linguistically, the use of everyday speech, advertising slogans, and even internet slang has continuously revitalized poetic language, creating an unprecedented sense of contemporaneity.

Distinct from traditional verse, the language of modern poetry should, in the author’s view, embody two essential qualities: innovation and a sense of modernity.

I. Innovation: Transforming the Obsolete into the Extraordinary

The most striking feature of modern poetic language lies in its innovation, which operates on two levels. The first is vertical inheritance—transforming the old into something new. The second is horizontal transplantation—forging new poetic vocabulary.

Modern poets must break free from the syntax and diction of traditional poets, creating new expressions through new forms and grammatical structures. In other words, modern poetry must take root in the soil of classical poetry while cultivating new poetic species.

Consider Luo Fu’s poem Golden Dragon Chan Temple:

Fern plants
along the white stone steps
chew their way downward

These lines derive from Liu Yuxi’s Inscription of the Humble Room, specifically the phrase “moss traces climb, all green.” Through transformation and reconfiguration, Luo Fu imbues the original image with innovative modern significance.

II. A Sense of Modernity: Forging New Poetic Vocabulary

Poet Luo Fu once said, “A poet is a magician of language.” This statement serves both as an expectation and a spiritual encouragement for poets. Contemporary poets, no longer constrained by formal limitations, must master rhetorical techniques and grammatical innovation to forge modern poetic vocabulary. In doing so, modern poetry can remain in step with the times, capture the pulse of the era, and fully express the material and spiritual dimensions of modern life.

For example, in Zheng Chouyu’s poem Mistake:

My clattering horse’s hooves
are a beautiful mistake.
I am not a returning man—
only a passerby.

Since then, the phrase “a beautiful mistake” has become a widely quoted modern poetic expression.

Section Two: Imagery and Musicality in Modern Poetry

I. Imagery in Modern Poetry

(1) Seeking Images through Meaning, Expressing Meaning through Images

Imagery in modern poetry refers to symbolic linguistic units that, through careful selection and arrangement by the poet, convey concrete visual forms (images) and abstract emotional or conceptual meanings (ideas). In essence, concrete objects are used to express abstract sentiments.

From the poet’s perspective, meaning precedes imagery; the poet seeks images to express meaning. From the reader’s perspective, imagery comes first, and meaning is derived from it. Since modern poetry is free from formal and linguistic constraints, imagery may encompass all times and places, provided it is written in contemporary language and from a modern perspective.

If classical language and metrical forms are used, the result is imitation of ancient poetry rather than modern poetry. Conversely, if modern vocabulary is written in classical metrical forms—for example, regulated verse containing words such as loser, otaku, career woman, or space shuttle—the work still qualifies as modern poetry and may be termed metrical modern poetry.

(2) Formal Design and Methods of Meaning Expression

From the standpoint of language recording, Chinese characters primarily employ logographic representation, whereas phonetic scripts emphasize sound representation. Among the Six Principles of Chinese Characters, pictographs, ideographs, and compound ideographs are meaning-based; phonetic loans are sound-based; and phono-semantic compounds combine both.

Rhetoric studies how language expresses meaning through formal adjustment, designing aesthetic linguistic forms that precisely and vividly convey imagery and evoke reader response. Tropes such as metaphor, irony, and hyperbole function narratively, while structural devices such as repetition, gradation, and parallelism function expressively.

In presenting emotion or aesthetic interest, imagery relies on both formal design (external structure) and semantic technique (internal meaning). Modern poetry performs imagery through patterned forms that create an atmospheric context, while expressive techniques determine how emotion or interest is conveyed.

(3) Types of Imagery

1. The Author’s Classification

Imagery in modern poetry falls into concrete (real) imagery and abstract (virtual) imagery.

Concrete imagery includes:

• Generic imagery: collective or plural forms (e.g., Taipei City, women, war, forests, stars).
• Specific imagery: distinct individual entities (e.g., Taipei Metro, giraffe, azalea, the moon).

Abstract imagery includes:

• Action imagery (verbs): shooting, striking, overflowing.
• Emotional imagery (adverbs/adjectives): sorrowful Juliet, adorably Little Red Riding Hood.
• Descriptive imagery (sensory adjectives): fragrant flowers, eerie haunted houses.

2. Pure, Composite, and Symbolic Imagery: Fu, Bi, and Xing

(Quoted from Bai Ling, The Birth of a Poem, p. 95)

• Pure imagery (fu): direct presentation of the original image.
• Composite imagery (bi): indirect expression through comparison or substitution.
• Symbolic imagery (xing): using concrete objects to evoke higher spiritual or conceptual meanings.

II. Musicality in Modern Poetry

(1) Three Elements of Musicality: Melody, Rhythm, and Harmony

• Rhyme: periodic repetition of similar sounds.
• Melody: pitch variation and tonal movement.
• Rhythm: tempo, stress, and cadence of syllables.

As Professor Chen Zhengzhi notes, music consists of melody, rhythm, and harmony. Poetry parallels this structure through sound and cadence.

(2) Designing Musicality

The musicality of modern poetry can be designed through rhyme and alliteration, variation in line length, and rhythmic-structural patterns. This topic will be discussed in detail in a dedicated chapter on musicality.

Section Three: Structure and Aesthetic Experience in Modern Poetry

I. Structure

The structure of modern poetry differs from that of prose and fiction. While it may be divided into stanzas, it does not emphasize narrative progression or hierarchical development. Its structure is relatively free, allowing for brief lyric poems, expansive narrative epics, prose poems, or allegorical poems with novelistic structures.

II. Aesthetic Experience

Through imagery and musicality, modern poetry aims primarily to express emotion and convey aesthetic experience; narration and exposition are secondary. Imagery unfolds in successive visual scenes, while musicality functions like accompanying music in a performance. Together, aesthetic imagery and musical sound form the poet’s intended aesthetic experience—whether derived from reconfigured past experiences or newly imagined ones.

Notes

1. Chen Zhengzhi, Studies on Children’s Poetry Writing, Chapter Four: “The Language of Children’s Poetry,” Section Three: “The Language of Music.”