On Elegant and Responsive Poetry
/ Chen Qingyang
When a poet takes another’s modern poem as the object of their creation, producing a metatextual work, this is what is generally referred to as “elegant and responsive poetry” (雅和 or 酬唱). Such works can be further categorized into three types:
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Continuative Type (承續型) – continues the themes or narrative of the original text.
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Innovative Type (創新型) – uses the original text as a source of inspiration for new creation.
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Subversive Type (顛覆型) – takes a critical or even negating stance toward the original text.
Example: “Punctuation” / Chen Qu Fei
Every drifting punctuation mark writhes with the wind,
In the breeze, pieces of yellow leaves float about.
Each punctuation mark, once detached from memory,
Seemingly follows a similar fate.
Wherever it lands, it decays there.
I remember the letter I wrote to you to end things,
To this day, I never affixed a stamp to send it.
Where could it possibly go? My first love
Should have turned to ashes and scattered with the wind,
And you, arriving from the ends of the earth,
Just drift into the window of my story.
That wandering cloud, unless
It molds your crying-and-laughing self with some agar powder,
Forms a soft, chewy jelly,
Not only springy, but leaving traces of words,
Like metaphors, ambiguously tart.
Everything to be said is carved on the fluttering yellow leaves,
One leaf, one poem,
Allowing you to freely reline them, permitting you
To misread them each time, affix a postal mark,
And send them back to my window, so I can collect them,
Frame them, place them in the foggy forest of dreams.
They turn into fireflies, like inspiration,
Obedient and obedient, blinking faintly,
Reminding me that when I love you,
I should be a bit gentler than the west wind, a bit more considerate,
Talking in dreams, just a little…
Responsive Poem: “Punctuation” — Chen Qu Fei, Replied by Xia Muxue
The wind flips through the sentences,
Those hesitant commas, those faltering pauses,
Lose their footing at the edge of the season,
Like yellow leaves unable to return to their place,
Falling outside grammar.
Once separated from the sentence,
Fate begins to simplify:
Either a question mark, or a period,
Repeatedly rehearsed by rain,
To slowly lose its voice in unfamiliar soil.
I once wrote a letter too,
Missing only the final punctuation.
That tiny stamp
Could never attach,
As if affixing it
Would formally sentence the past.
You once appeared like an exclamation mark at the sentence’s start,
Too bright, making me forget
How to unfold the lines afterward.
So I let emotion stretch into ellipses,
Dripping repeatedly in the night.
If I could place you back between the lines,
I would carefully adjust the word order,
Making love less sharp,
Like a soft parenthesis,
Enclosing both laughter and tears.
Those sentences you misread,
Please send them back, no need to correct them.
I will stamp them with old-dream postmarks,
Preserve them in the page margins’ blank spaces.
When the forest mists rise, punctuation will glow,
Twinkling, reminding me —
A truly gentle poem
Is not about saying it all,
But knowing where to stop.
Analysis
Xia Muxue’s responsive poem belongs to the typical “continuative metatextual” type, yet incorporates highly developed innovative transpositions. She precisely extends Chen Qu Fei’s core metaphor—punctuation as emotional nodes / verdicts of fate—while transforming the original narrative and emotional unfolding into more abstract, calm, and self-reflective language.
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Phrases like “either a question mark, or a period” and “final punctuation / the past would be formally sentenced” elevate emotional relationships into a homomorphic structure of grammar and fate, turning love into a reflection on the ethics of closure rather than mere memory or regret.
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Using exclamation marks, ellipses, and parentheses, she creates an invisible rhythm of emotional cadence, responding to the dreamlike gentleness of the original poem while proposing a more introspective poetic thesis:
“A truly gentle poem / is not about saying it all / but knowing where to stop.”
This not only honors the source text but also establishes a mature, reflective poetic voice, showing that her 雅和 is not mere imitation, but a dialogue that constructs her own voice and aesthetic restraint.
