Chapter Three: The Structure of Modern Poetry (Part I)

Section One: Theoretical Principles of Modern Poetry Text Structure

Structure refers to the arrangement and organization of interrelated elements within a closed system, which inevitably generates interactions among them. The structure of a modern poetry text, specifically, is the organization by which a poet forms lines of poetry through imagery, aggregates lines into stanzas, and sequences stanzas to form the whole poem. Accordingly, the structural components of modern poetry include: semantic and rhythmic relationships between lines, semantic coherence and rhythmic variation between stanzas—collectively referred to as “contextual relationships”. In Eastern classical Chinese literature, this is generally called “zhangfa layout” (章法布局).

Zhangfa refers to the optimal combination of linguistic material, linking phrases into sentences, sentences into stanzas, and stanzas into a complete work—a method of “planning and arranging the text”. It mainly encompasses the text’s thematic threads, structural patterns, levels of paragraphs, openings and closings, and transitions or cross-references.

Specifically, when preparing to write a modern poem, after determining the theme or subject (the intention), the poet enters the conceptual stage:

1. How to begin (opening line)?
2. What thread or clue to use to develop the narrative?
3. Which formal structure to adopt? Options include single-stanza, two-part, three-part, four-part, or multi-part structures.
4. Which organizational pattern to employ? Options include vertical, horizontal, interwoven, parallel, progressive, combined parallel-progressive, contrastive, causal, or stream-of-consciousness structures.
5. How should stanzas connect and correspond with each other?
6. How to conclude? How to create a sense of closure and resonance? How to generate implicit meaning and leave space for imagination?

Through zhangfa layout, the elements of a modern poem are arranged and organized into a layered, systematic, and coherent organic whole, achieving: thematic integration → contextual coherence → clarity of logic → flexibility and diversity. In this way, the text can employ its vivid and flexible expressive techniques to produce strong, distinctive aesthetic impact.

Section Two: Zhangfa Layout in Modern Poetry

I. The Opening Line of Modern Poetry

For a modern poem to successfully enter the reader’s perception and comprehension, the opening line functions in rhetorical aesthetics with “perceptual activation” and “construction of the horizon of expectation”. From the perspective of reception theory, the opening line acts as the poem’s first aesthetic stimulus; it not only guides the reader into the poem’s situation but also preliminarily sets the tone, imagery density, and emotional direction, thereby influencing subsequent interpretation.

From the viewpoint of modern poetry rhetorical aesthetics, the opening line is not merely a “prefatory remark”, but a highly condensed linguistic strategy. It generally serves three functions:

1. Thematic cue: Hinting at or directly revealing the poem’s central proposition.
2. Aesthetic summons: Through defamiliarization, symbolism, or paradox, it arouses the reader’s curiosity.
3. Linguistic momentum: Establishing the foundation for the subsequent development of imagery, emotional progression, and structural unfolding.

Thus, an excellent opening line must balance “brightness” and “durability.” If it is too dazzling or overly saturated with rhetoric, it may attract short-term attention but cause structural imbalance, resulting in a weak follow-through. Conversely, if it is too flat, it may fail to activate the reader’s motivation, and the poem loses appeal before it even begins. Ideally, the opening should function like an overture—both anticipating the melody and leaving room for development.

In modern poetry, there is no fixed rule for the form of the opening line, but it must conform to the unity of overall poetic meaning and rhetorical structure. Below are several common and representative opening strategies with examples illustrating their rhetorical operation.

(1) Thematic-Statement Opening

The thematic-statement opening is an explicit rhetorical strategy that starts directly with the poem’s core proposition, allowing the reader to quickly grasp the thematic axis. In rhetoric, it has high propositionality, often presented as declarative, aphoristic, or philosophical statements, forming a stable semantic core.

Example: Zhang Cuo, The Beauty of Imperfection (缺憾之美)

It is said that all imperfections arise from the pursuit of perfection.
Just like that morning sunlight, sparse and scattered,
streaming through dense bamboo groves and cypresses,
passionately spilling over moss-covered rocks,
as if some dew lingering from the night, faintly…

The opening line, “It is said that all imperfections arise from the pursuit of perfection,” encapsulates the poem’s theme. Its rhetorical charm lies not in ornate language but in paradoxical tension: imperfection vs. perfection, generating conceptual contrast and irony, stimulating the reader’s reflective interest. Subsequent imagery (sunlight, bamboo, cypress, rocks, dew) concretizes abstract philosophical propositions, deepening thematic resonance on a sensory level. A well-executed thematic-statement opening, aided by symbolism, metaphor, or extended imagery, balances rational and emotional forces, providing a strong, enduring aesthetic foundation.

(2) Interrogative Opening

The interrogative opening employs a “cognitive tension” strategy. By beginning with a question, the poet immediately places the reader in a state of reflection and anticipation, transforming an abstract proposition into a concrete psychological interaction. From a modern poetry rhetorical aesthetics perspective, this style features:

1. Activating reading expectation: The reader naturally seeks answers or exploration.
2. Emotional tension construction: The interrogative tone implies emotional fluctuation, guiding emotional flow through the poem.
3. Prefiguring imagery: The opening question hints at subsequent imagery and symbolic significance, allowing the poem to unfold in a “question-and-answer” manner, combining rational and emotional layers.

The interrogative opening is not merely a formal question but a dialogue between language and imagery, often containing paradoxes, tension, or unanswerable spaces, generating multilayered tension between rational scrutiny and emotional experience.

Example: Zhang Cuo, Willow Leaf Twin Blades (柳葉雙刀)

Tonight, how shall we trace each other’s histories?
Though I have a thousand questions,
you have no word in reply,
beneath the solitary lamp,
you silently reveal yourself,
through the blade’s waves
and the irreparable gaps,
softly presenting a silent China,
a tale not recorded in history,
national affairs,
Jianghu grievances,
all left unspoken.

The interrogative opening—“Tonight, how shall we trace each other’s histories?”—triggers emotion, linking the joy, reflection, and nostalgia of encountering the ancient blades. Rhetorically, this can be analyzed on multiple levels:

1. Integration of theme and emotion: Introduces the poem’s core—mutual recognition with the ancient blades, interwoven with history and personal memory.
2. Imagery and symbolism: The blades act as containers of memory and historical metaphor.
3. • Blade → strength, historical scars, Jianghu order
   • Waves → emotional fluctuation, historical rise and fall
   • Gaps → lost memory, historical lacunae
4. Language rhythm and emotional progression: Short, stacked lines convey a quiet yet tense atmosphere.
5. Historical and cultural depth: Allusions to unrecorded events, national matters, and Jianghu grievances enrich cultural symbolism.

Summary of Rhetorical Principles:

• Interrogative opening → stimulates expectation and emotional engagement
• Blade imagery → symbolizes history and memory
• Tone and rhythm → establish aesthetic tension
• Interplay of memory and history → provides cultural and emotional depth

This exemplifies how an interrogative opening introduces personal emotion, historical imagery, and philosophical reflection while using imagery and rhythmic arrangement to create enduring readability and aesthetic tension.

(3) Quotation-Based Opening

A quotation-based opening is an intertextual rhetorical strategy. By citing historical references, aphorisms, or prior poems, the poet establishes a cultural or historical background, immediately grounding the poem in context and authority. From modern poetry rhetorical aesthetics, this strategy has the following functions:

1. Cultural linkage and imagery foundation: Provides familiar cultural symbols, allowing abstract imagery to extend meaning.
2. Contextual authority and guidance: Creates a sense of prior discourse, leading the reader into the poem’s world, enhancing persuasiveness and emotional resonance.
3. Preset aesthetic tension: Quotations with philosophical or emotional density hint at thematic conflict or emotional tension, fostering anticipatory engagement.

Example: Chen Qingyang, Broken Dream Blade (斷夢刀)

In Jianghu, it is said: breaking the soul is easy, breaking the intestines is hard; breaking the intestines is hard, breaking dreams is hardest.
—Poet Zhang Cuo, same title
Having drunk countless neck-bloods, a blade
wraps its own killing aura and sleeps
And you, swordsman,
your dream talk flutters like snowflakes
dancing among the reeds by the river…

The opening quotation performs three functions:

1. Thematic cue and philosophical exposition: Highlights the emotional depth and intractability of Jianghu psychological trauma.
2. Imagery and emotional extension: Contrasts violent habitual imagery with delicate dream imagery, establishing tension.
3. Rhetorical strategy:
4. • Intertextuality: Links text with cultural context
   • Symbolism and metaphor: Blade, blood, dreams, snow, reeds symbolize Jianghu emotion, psychological trauma, and dream freedom
   • Emotional progression: Quotation hints at suffering; imagery develops contrast and rhythm

Aesthetic Effect: The quotation-based opening combines historical and cultural depth with subsequent emotional imagery, uniting rational thought and emotional experience.

Key Points of Broken Dream Blade Quotation Opening:

• Quotation from Jianghu legend → establishes cultural and historical context
• Suggests thematic layers → progressive emotional stages: soul, intestines, dream
• Subsequent imagery resonates → blood, blade, dreams, snow, reeds
• Rhetorical principles → intertextuality + symbolic imagery + emotional progression
• Aesthetic effect → unified tension of rational reflection and emotional experience

(4) Metaphorical Opening
The metaphorical opening is the most intuitive and emotionally engaging way to begin a modern poem. From the perspective of rhetorical aesthetics, metaphorical openings have the following characteristics:

1. Psychological Guidance and Imaginative Activation
   Metaphor, as a cognitive and aesthetic tool, immediately opens up the reader’s imaginative space. By presenting the first line as a metaphor, abstract or detached themes are made concrete, attracting the reader from the outset and generating psychological engagement and emotional resonance.
2. Rhythmic and Melodic Arrangement
   Chained metaphors, repeated lines, or mirrored arrangements create a sense of rhythm and melody, making the flow of language itself part of the aesthetic enjoyment. This rhythm is not only auditory beauty but also a visual and psychological manifestation of emotional progression and chains of imagery.
3. Chains of Imagery and Multi-layered Symbolism
   Metaphorical openings often form a "chain of imagery," where each image can stand alone as a scene while also echoing the others, creating layered symbolic tension. Psychologically, this establishes “continuous expectation,” allowing readers to gradually deepen their understanding of the theme as the metaphors unfold.
4. Aesthetic Tension and Interplay of Reality and Abstraction
   Metaphorical openings can transform abstract emotions, memories, or philosophies into tangible images, achieving an aesthetic effect that blends reality and abstraction. The richer the first-line metaphor, the higher the reader’s psychological engagement and emotional expectation, but the poet must maintain the rhythm and extension of imagery in subsequent lines to avoid "overextended or loose metaphors."

Example: Spring Is Like You, You Are Like Smoke, Smoke Is Like Me, I Am Like Spring ∕ Guan Guan
Spring is like you, you are like pear blossoms, pear blossoms like apricot blossoms, apricot blossoms like peach blossoms, peach blossoms like your face, face like rouge, rouge like the earth, earth like the sky, sky like your eyes, eyes like the river, river like your song, song like willows, willows like your hand, hand like wind, wind like clouds, clouds like your hair, hair like flying flowers, flying flowers like swallows, swallows like you, you like larks, larks like kites, kites like you, you like fog, fog like smoke, smoke like me, I am like you, you are like spring…
Spring is like Qin Qiong, Song Jiang, Cheng Ji Si Han, Chu Ba Wang, Qin Qiong, Song Jiang, Lin Daiyu, Qin Shi Huang…
“Flowers are not flowers, Fog is not fog.”

Guan Guan’s poem uses a metaphorical opening: the entire first line is a long chain of imagery:
Spring is like you, you are like pear blossoms, pear blossoms like apricot blossoms…

1. Chain of Imagery and Psychological Guidance

• The poem begins with “Spring is like you.” The metaphor fuses personal emotions, natural scenery, and self-perception, immediately immersing the reader in a psychological and emotional imaginative space.
• The imagery unfolds in a chain: Spring → pear blossoms → apricot blossoms → peach blossoms → face → rouge → earth → sky → eyes → river → song → willow → hand → wind → clouds → hair → flying flowers → swallows → larks → kite → fog → smoke → me → spring. This chained metaphor creates both a melodic flow and a mental “imagery roaming,” allowing the reader to naturally immerse in the poem’s visual, tactile, and auditory sensations.

1. Rhetorical Strategy Analysis

• Chained Metaphor: Each metaphor echoes the previous image while opening new associations, creating layered aesthetic beauty.
• Symbolic Tension: Each image is more than a concrete object—it symbolizes characters, emotions, time, or existence. For example, “your eyes → river → song” represents both nature and the flow of emotion.
• Surrealism and Synesthesia: Associations among images transcend logical reality (person → flower → rouge → earth → sky → eyes), producing a dreamlike surreal effect while integrating visual, auditory, and tactile synesthetic experience.

1. Aesthetic Effects

• Immediately establishes a poetic scene where emotions and nature intertwine, leading the reader into a psychological roaming experience.
• The long chain of imagery and stacked metaphors creates a sense of melody and flow, achieving a high degree of aesthetic tension at the emotional level.
• Reality and abstraction interact: characters, nature, psychology, and emotion intertwine in the metaphorical chain, allowing readers to simultaneously experience tangible natural scenery and abstract emotional experience.

1. Rhetorical Summary

• Opening Strategy: Metaphorical opening
• Function: Stimulates imagination, builds a chain of imagery, creates a sense of melody
• Imagery Operation: Multi-layered symbolism + chained metaphor + surreal synesthesia
• Aesthetic Tension: Interaction of reality and abstraction, fusion of emotion and nature, psychological immersion

(5) Circuitous Opening
The circuitous opening is an indirect approach. It does not directly reveal the theme but gradually leads the reader to the core poetic scene through circumlocution, trivial fragments, or contextual buildup. From the perspective of modern poetry’s rhetorical aesthetics, circuitous openings have the following characteristics:

1. Psychological Guidance and Progressive Anticipation
   Circuitous openings start with details or peripheral phenomena, allowing readers to gradually discover the theme, building cognitive expectations and emotional progression. This strategy creates an “aesthetic exploration,” hiding the theme within imagery and narrative, enhancing reader engagement and intellectual depth.
2. Multi-layered Tension of Imagery and Language Rhythm
   Circuitous openings often use seemingly unrelated details, time fragments, or contextual descriptions as a linguistic starting point. These elements form stacked imagery, creating aesthetic tension. As the theme gradually emerges, the implicit connection between images produces psychological resonance, emotionally drawing readers even before they fully grasp the theme.
3. Interplay of Reality and Abstraction and Emotional Metaphor
   The opening presents surface situations or trivial daily life but conceals philosophical or emotional cues. This interplay of reality and abstraction enhances the delicacy of emotional tension, requiring readers to construct the poetic meaning themselves, deepening aesthetic experience and interest.
4. Aesthetic Effect
   Circuitous openings, through gradual buildup, create multi-layered tension in rhythm, imagery, and emotion, providing an aesthetic experience where the reader “discovers without being told.” It combines psychological participation with reflective imagery, enriching the poem’s expressive power.

Example: Colonel ∕ Ya Xian
*That is purely another kind of rose
Born from flames
In the buckwheat field they encountered the greatest battle
And one of his legs departed in 1943

He had once heard history and laughter

What is immortality
Cough syrup, razors, monthly rent, etc.
And under the sporadic battles of his wife’s sewing machine
He felt the only thing that could capture him
Was the sun*

Ya Xian’s Colonel uses a circuitous opening:
That is purely another kind of rose…

1. Opening Strategy and Psychological Guidance

• The first line “That is purely another kind of rose” does not mention the colonel directly but uses symbolism to evoke associations with beauty, fragility, and birth from fire.
• Through flames, buckwheat fields, and lost leg details, historical context and emotional atmosphere are gradually established, forming progressive cognitive engagement.

1. Imagery Chain and Emotional Tension

• Flame → destruction of war
• Buckwheat field → ordinary life contrasted with war
• Lost leg → personal trauma and historical tragedy
• Rose → symbol of beauty, life, and resilience
  The imagery echoes itself, creating aesthetic tension where the brutality of war coexists with personal emotional delicacy.

1. Language Rhythm and Emotional Development

• Short, fragmented sentences simulate fragmented historical memory and reflect the character’s scattered psychology.
• Lines such as “What is immortality / Cough syrup, razors, monthly rent, etc.” juxtapose trivial daily life with philosophical questioning, enhancing emotional tension, requiring readers to synthesize meaning between details and theme.

1. Rhetorical Summary

• Opening Strategy: Circuitous, starts with trivial or symbolic elements, gradually enters theme
• Imagery Operation: Stacked imagery + reality-abstraction interplay + personal trauma symbolism
• Emotional Rhythm: Winding narrative + psychological participation
• Aesthetic Effect: Reader explores theme through imagery and emotion, achieving dual immersion

Key Points of Circuitous Opening in Colonel

• First line does not directly state theme → rose symbolizes life, war, and beauty
• Layered details → flames, buckwheat field, lost leg form imagery chain
• Trivial and philosophical interweaving → psychological engagement and emotional progression
• Aesthetic tension → interplay of reality and abstraction + emotional depth + gradual theme presentation

(6) Close-up Opening
The close-up opening is a microcosmic focus strategy, emphasizing partial details of a person, object, or scene to immediately capture the reader’s visual and emotional attention. From a rhetorical aesthetics perspective, close-up openings have the following features:

1. Dual Visual and Psychological Focus
   Close-up openings use partial imagery as a sensory entry point, drawing the reader psychologically “closer,” creating immersion and presence. The partial depiction is both concrete and symbolic, sparking associations and directing attention to the poem’s thematic or emotional core.
2. Condensed Imagery and Amplified Emotion
   Partial close-ups often carry the entire poem’s imagery and emotional symbols. A single object, body part, or fragment can condense historical context, cultural meaning, or psychological emotion, forming highly symbolic expression.
3. Language Rhythm and Tension Construction
   Close-up openings often use concise, repetitive, or stacked lines, making imagery visually “larger” and psychologically “heavier.” This also creates rhythm and tension, allowing the reader to immediately enter the poem’s aesthetic field.
4. Aesthetic Effect
   Close-up openings transform grand themes or complex emotions into tangible, perceptible focal points, allowing readers to experience the overall emotion through subtle sensory stimulation, achieving an interplay of reality and abstraction, and unifying emotion and imagery.

Example: Red Corn ∕ Ya Xian
*In the year of Xuantong, the wind blew
Blowing that string of red corn

It hung under the eaves
As if the entire north
All the melancholy of the north
Hung there…*

Even now
I am old
Under the eaves of memory
Red corn hangs
The wind of 1958 blows
Red corn hangs*

Ya Xian’s Red Corn begins with a close-up opening:
In the year of Xuantong, the wind blew / Blowing that string of red corn

1. Opening Strategy and Psychological Guidance

• The poet does not describe all of the North or the historical period directly but focuses on the “red corn,” immediately capturing the reader’s visual attention.
• The partial image carries emotional and cultural symbolism: red corn represents northern rural life, the passage of time, and collective memory.

1. Condensed Imagery and Symbolism

• “Red corn hanging / as if all the melancholy of the North hangs there” → the partial object carries the emotional weight of an entire era and region.
• Temporal span → from the Xuantong year to 1958, the close-up image mediates history and personal memory, giving macro-symbolic function to a microcosmic detail.

1. Language Rhythm and Emotional Development

• Repetition of “red corn hangs” and “wind blows” creates stacked rhythm, strengthening visual impression and sense of temporal flow.
• The language is concise yet weighty; the partial detail amplifies emotion, allowing readers to feel the quiet melancholy of the northern years.

1. Rhetorical Summary

• Opening Strategy: Close-up opening
• Function: Focus on partial imagery, immediately capture visual and psychological attention
• Imagery Operation: Partial close-up + historical symbolism + temporal span
• Aesthetic Effect: Interplay of reality and abstraction + amplified emotion + condensed historical memory

(7) Suspenseful Opening
A suspenseful opening is a rhetorical strategy that creates psychological tension. The poet introduces a question or unresolved situation in the first line, sparking the reader’s curiosity and anticipation, thereby generating a motivation to read. From the perspective of modern poetry’s rhetorical aesthetics, the suspenseful opening has the following characteristics:

1. Psychological Engagement and Expectation Building
   The opening immediately presents a doubt or contradiction, stimulating the reader’s internal “Why?” or “What happens next?” thought processes, prompting them to continue reading to seek answers. This strategy allows the poem to engage the reader psychologically from the very first line, creating a strong sense of participation.
2. Implied Emotion and Imagery
   Although the suspenseful opening does not directly reveal the theme, emotional cues are often embedded in the unresolved situation. Driven by curiosity, readers naturally resonate with the emotions, allowing abstract feelings to unfold gradually at a psychological level.
3. Rhythm and Linguistic Tension
   Suspenseful openings often employ short sentences, strategic pauses, or leaps in imagery, generating tension in both the language and the emotional cues. This rhythm deepens the sense of suspense and prepares the ground for the eventual release of thematic or emotional content.
4. Aesthetic Effect
   By establishing a reading structure of “unknown—exploration—understanding,” suspenseful openings immerse the reader simultaneously on psychological and emotional levels, blending curiosity, emotional resonance, and imagery experience into a cohesive aesthetic effect.

Example: Comfort / Gu Cheng

Green wild grapes
Pale yellow crescent moon
Mother worries
How to make jam

I said:
Don’t add sugar
On the morning fence
There is a sweet
Red sun

Gu Cheng’s Comfort employs a suspenseful opening:

1. Opening Strategy & Psychological Guidance

• The first lines present ordinary imagery (wild grapes, crescent moon) alongside a notable situation (mother’s worry), creating a suspense of “action versus problem.”
• “How to make jam” is both concrete and unresolved, stimulating the reader’s curiosity about how the dilemma will be resolved.

1. Imagery and Emotional Tension

• “Green wild grapes” and “pale yellow crescent moon” — vivid colors and images evoke childlike wonder and natural feeling.
• “Mother worries” — subtle expression of daily emotional tension, allowing suspense to resonate psychologically and emotionally.
• Later lines “I said: Don’t add sugar / On the morning fence / There is a sweet / Red sun” respond to the suspense while releasing imagery and providing emotional consolation, achieving psychological and aesthetic tension release.

1. Rhetorical Strategy Analysis

• Suspense-Resolution Structure: Doubt is introduced first, then imagery resolves the tension, completing a psychological cycle.
• Imagery Symbolism: Red sun symbolizes sweetness, warmth, and comfort; grapes and crescent moon symbolize the natural emotions of childhood.
• Language Rhythm: Short sentences and spatial pauses enhance rhythm and heighten suspense.

1. Aesthetic Effect

• The opening suspense captures the reader’s attention, generating psychological engagement.
• Subsequent imagery and symbolism release the suspense and create emotional resonance.
• Interplay of real and abstract: daily concrete life and abstract consolation intermingle, producing dual psychological and sensory immersion.

Summary: Key Points of Comfort’s Suspenseful Opening

• Introduced doubt → Mother worried, how to make jam
• Imagery layout → Wild grapes, crescent moon → Red sun
• Rhetorical principle → Suspense-resolution structure + symbolic imagery + rhythmic pause
• Aesthetic tension → Psychological participation + emotional resonance + interplay of real and abstract

(8) Contrastive Opening
A contrastive opening is a rhetorical strategy that highlights tension and depth. By juxtaposing opposing or complementary elements, situations, or psychological states, it creates sharp contrast, emphasizing the theme and deepening imagery. From the perspective of modern poetry’s rhetorical aesthetics, contrastive openings have the following features:

1. Psychological Tension and Emotional Impact
   By presenting opposing elements simultaneously, contrastive openings generate psychological tension in the reader, stimulating curiosity and reflection, and deepening emotional engagement with the theme.
2. Imagery Emphasis and Symbolic Extension
   Contrast makes imagery more vivid. Each element can stand alone yet also extends symbolic meaning. For example, “youth versus old age,” “city versus countryside,” or “action versus stillness” not only represents the external world but reflects internal emotions.
3. Dynamic Rhythm and Structure
   Contrastive openings often employ short sentences, stacked lines, or line breaks to create rhythm and visual juxtaposition. This arrangement emphasizes contrast and guides the reader’s pace and psychological response.
4. Aesthetic Effect
   By contrasting reality and abstraction, motion and stillness, near and far, time, and emotion, the reader experiences tension and depth simultaneously across visual, psychological, and emotional dimensions, achieving high aesthetic resonance.

Example: Rainfall / Xiang Yang

It’s the age to go out and explore
The youth longing for city bustle chops down
The leafless old tree, in the swirling rings of its trunk
Recalls the dried-up, clogged morning dew
It’s time to return home
The elder missing their grandchild, holding
A tea cup filled with smoke, in the reflection
Of the wrinkles, sees
Rivers deeply immersed

Xiang Yang’s Rainfall uses a contrastive opening:

1. Opening Strategy & Psychological Guidance

• The first line establishes time and psychological starting point: “It’s the age to go out and explore,” followed by contrasting images: “youth longing for city bustle” vs. “elder missing grandchild.”
• Contrast produces psychological tension, letting the reader feel both youthful exploration and elderly reflection simultaneously.

1. Imagery and Symbolic Analysis

• Youth → city, action, leafless tree
• Elder → home, tea smoke, wrinkles, rivers
• Imagery mirrors each other: leafless branches symbolize time, morning dew symbolizes fleeting youth, tea smoke and wrinkles symbolize time accumulation, rivers symbolize life and history.

1. Rhetorical Strategy Analysis

• Motion vs. stillness: youth acts (chopping tree), elder remains (reflecting)
• Time contrast: present youth vs. retrospective old age
• Symbolic extension: youth vs. elder as metaphor for psychological and emotional stages of life
• Rhythm use: short sentences and line spacing enhance contrast, allowing synchronized visual and psychological tension

1. Aesthetic Effect

• Contrast allows the reader to immediately experience the intersection of youth and old age, generating psychological and emotional resonance.
• Juxtaposed imagery creates layers of time, life, and emotion, achieving unified tension between reality and emotion.
• Language rhythm and spacing strengthen aesthetic immersion.

Summary: Key Points of Rainfall’s Contrastive Opening

• Contrast in opening → youth exploration vs. elder reflection
• Imagery layout → leafless branches, morning dew, tea smoke, wrinkles, rivers
• Rhetorical principles → motion vs. stillness + time contrast + symbolic imagery + rhythm and spacing
• Aesthetic tension → psychological tension + emotional resonance + temporal and spatial layering

(9) Associative Opening
An associative opening is a psychological and imagery-guiding strategy. By describing concrete objects, scenes, or characters related to the theme, it leads the reader to deeper thematic associations. From the perspective of modern poetry’s rhetorical aesthetics, associative openings have these features:

1. Psychological and Cognitive Connection

• Concrete elements or situations at the opening, while not explicitly stating the theme, stimulate the reader’s imagination, forming a “part-to-whole” cognitive understanding.
• This strategy engages the reader in the construction of meaning early on, creating thematic expectation and psychological anticipation.

1. Imagery Extension and Theme Resonance

• Associative openings extend specific, incidental, or everyday elements into symbols or metaphors, giving them multiple layers of meaning.
• Through association, readers map concrete experience onto abstract themes, achieving fusion of imagery and theme.

1. Language Rhythm and Psychological Immersion

• Openings often use plain, fragmented, or narrative language, allowing readers to make mental associations naturally within the flowing context.
• Rhythm complements association, gradually immersing readers in the poem’s emotional atmosphere.

1. Aesthetic Effect

• Associative openings operate simultaneously on psychological and emotional levels, allowing imagery and theme to merge naturally, forming deeply immersive aesthetic experience.
• Especially suited for modern poems with complex inner emotions or multi-layered imagery, linking abstract psyche with concrete world organically.

Example: Ventriloquism / Xia Yu

I entered the wrong room
Missed my own wedding.
Through the only crack in the wall, I saw
Everything proceeding perfectly. He wore a white coat
She held flowers, ritual, promise, kiss
Bearing it: Fate, my painstakingly honed ventriloquism
(The warm water beast of the tongue, tamed
In the tiny aquarium, wriggling)
The beast said: Yes, I do.

Xia Yu’s Ventriloquism employs an associative opening:

1. Opening Strategy & Psychological Guidance

• The first line “I entered the wrong room / Missed my own wedding” describes an accident but immediately evokes life’s missed opportunities, irreversibility of time, and psychological regret.
• Concrete detail (room, wedding) triggers mental association, extending action into abstract emotions and life philosophy.

1. Imagery and Symbolism Analysis

• Wall crack → psychological gap, observer perspective
• Wedding proceeding perfectly → idealized life, uncontrollable fate
• Ventriloquism → metaphor for inner control or self-expression, subtle psychological dialogue with fate
• Water beast → inner desire and emotional energy, signaling dynamic, unrestrained feelings

1. Rhetorical Strategy Analysis

• Associative chain: concrete event → psychological experience → symbolic imagery → theme (fate, inner manipulation)
• Language rhythm: short, fragmented sentences create psychological pauses, guiding reader association
• Symbolism and psychological mapping: ventriloquism and water beast embody mental activity, enhancing reader’s emotional engagement

1. Aesthetic Effect

• Associative opening works on both psychological and symbolic layers, allowing readers to grasp the theme through concrete experience.
• Multi-layered imagery amplifies emotional tension and psychological depth.
• Real-abstract interplay → concrete events reflect abstract psyche, forming the immersive aesthetic unique to modern poetry.

Summary: Key Points of Ventriloquism’s Associative Opening

• Associative start → wrong room → missed wedding → life’s losses and regret
• Imagery chain → crack observation, ventriloquism, water beast → fate, self-expression, inner desire
• Rhetorical principle → associative chain + symbolic imagery + short sentence pauses
• Aesthetic tension → psychological participation + emotional resonance + interplay of real and abstract

(10) Personification Opening
A personification opening assigns human traits to non-human entities (plants, objects, time, natural phenomena), granting them emotion, will, or action. This immediately attracts the reader’s emotional and psychological engagement. From the perspective of modern poetry’s rhetorical aesthetics, personification openings have the following features:

1. Emotional Projection and Psychological Engagement

• By attributing human characteristics to non-human things, readers perceive and feel the imagery in a human-like manner.
• Emotional projection makes abstract or natural elements relatable, enabling psychological resonance.

1. Vivid and Concrete Imagery

• Personification transforms abstract, static, or lifeless objects into vivid entities with visible action or emotion.
• This visual and emotional clarity enhances artistic tension in the opening.

1. Language Rhythm and Sensory Resonance

• Personification openings often employ short sentences, lists, or stacking, creating rhythm, and evoking sensory responses through movement and emotion.
• These techniques immerse the reader in the poem’s world from the beginning.

1. Aesthetic Effect

• Personification renders the imagery vivid and emotionally charged, achieving multi-layered resonance in reader psychology, emotion, and senses.
• Abstract themes (home, life, natural order) are presented in tangible, relatable forms, achieving interplay between real and abstract with profound symbolic meaning.

Example: Home / Yang Huan

Leaves are cradles for little caterpillars.
Flowers are beds for butterflies,
Every singing bird has a cozy nest.
Industrious ants and bees live in spacious dormitories,
Crabs and little fish live in the blue river.
The boundless green fields are home for grasshoppers and dragonflies.
The poor wind has no home,
Running here and there with nowhere to rest.
Drifting clouds have no home,
They weep incessantly when the sky darkens.
Little brother and sister are happiest!
Born with a home prepared by mom and dad,
Growing up safely inside.

Yang Huan’s Home employs a personification opening:

1. Opening Strategy & Psychological Guidance

• The opening directly personifies natural and small animal dwellings, capturing reader attention and resonance.
• Through personification, readers naturally relate this to the meaning of “home”: warmth, protection, stability.

1. Imagery and Symbolism Analysis

• Leaves, flowers, birds, ants, bees, crabs, fish, fields → concrete imagery symbolizing home and natural order
• Wind, clouds → homeless, symbolizing loneliness and drift
• Little brother and sister → human happiness, contrasting with nature’s homelessness, emphasizing the importance of home in life

1. Rhetorical Strategy Analysis

• Personification: objects and animals given emotion and action, creating vivid imagery
• Listing and stacking: sequentially describing each creature’s “home,” forming rhythm and visual richness
• Contrast: those with homes vs. wind and clouds without, emphasizing theme and emotional tension

1. Aesthetic Effect

• Personification makes the concept of home tangible, perceptible, and emotionally resonant
• Listing and contrast create rhythm and layered imagery, combining childlike wonder, philosophy, and beauty
• Interplay of real and abstract → concrete description and abstract meaning coexist, providing both intimacy and symbolic depth

Summary: Key Points of Home’s Personification Opening

• Opening strategy → personify nature and animals to establish “home” imagery
• Imagery layout → leaves, flowers, birds, ants, bees, crabs, fish, fields, wind, clouds, children
• Rhetorical principles → personification + listing/stacking + contrast
• Aesthetic tension → psychological resonance + emotional projection + interplay of real and abstract + symbolic meaning

(4) Metaphorical Opening
The metaphorical opening is the most intuitive and emotionally guiding way to begin a modern poem. From the perspective of rhetorical aesthetics, metaphorical openings have the following characteristics:

1. Psychological guidance and imagination activation
   Metaphors, as tools of cognition and aesthetic perception, can immediately open the reader’s associative space. By presenting the first line as a metaphor, abstract or detached themes are concretized, immediately attracting the reader and eliciting psychological engagement and emotional resonance.
2. Rhythm and melodic unfolding
   Sequential metaphors, repeated phrases, or mirror-like arrangements create rhythm and melody, making the flow of language part of the aesthetic enjoyment. This rhythm is not just auditory beauty, but also a visualization and psychological presentation of emotional progression and imagery chains.
3. Chains of imagery and multi-layered symbolism
   Metaphorical openings often form a “chain of imagery,” in which each image can stand alone as a scene yet also echo the others, generating layered symbolic tension. Psychologically, this tension establishes a “continuous anticipation,” allowing the reader to gradually deepen their understanding of the theme through the unfolding metaphors.
4. Aesthetic tension and interplay of reality and abstraction
   Metaphorical openings can transform abstract emotions, memories, or philosophical ideas into concrete images, achieving an aesthetic effect of overlapping reality and abstraction. The richer the opening metaphor, the higher the reader’s psychological engagement and emotional expectation, but the poet must maintain rhythm and image extension throughout the text to avoid “overextended and loose metaphors.”

Example: Spring is like you, you are like smoke, smoke is like me, I am like spring by Guan Guan

Spring is like you, you are like pear blossoms, pear blossoms are like apricot blossoms, apricot blossoms are like peach blossoms, peach blossoms are like your face, your face is like rouge, rouge is like the earth, the earth is like the sky, the sky is like your eyes…

Guan Guan’s poem begins with a long chain of images:
Spring → you → pear blossoms → apricot blossoms → peach blossoms → face → rouge → earth → sky → eyes → river → song → willow → hand → wind → cloud → hair → flying flowers → swallow → skylark → kite → fog → smoke → me → spring.

Analysis:

1. Chains of imagery and psychological guidance

• Opening with “Spring is like you,” the metaphor fuses personal emotions, natural scenery, and self-perception, immediately drawing the reader into a psychological and emotional imaginative space.
• The chain of imagery creates a “melodic journey” and facilitates immersive engagement with the poem’s visual, tactile, and auditory impressions.

1. Rhetorical strategies

• Chained metaphors: Each metaphor echoes the previous image while opening new associations, producing layered aesthetic beauty.
• Symbolic tension: Each image signifies more than its literal object, representing emotions, time, existence, etc., e.g., “your eyes → river → song” conveys both nature and emotional flow.
• Surrealism and synesthesia: Associations transcend logical reality (person → flower → rouge → earth → sky → eyes), creating dreamlike surrealism and sensory fusion.

1. Aesthetic effects

• Immediate establishment of a “fusion of emotion and nature” poetic realm.
• Long imagery chains and repeated metaphors produce melody and flow, achieving high aesthetic tension on the emotional level.
• Interplay of reality and abstraction: human, nature, psyche, and emotion merge, allowing readers to simultaneously experience concrete natural scenes and abstract emotional states.

1. Rhetorical summary

• Opening strategy → metaphorical
• Function → stimulate imagination, establish chains of imagery, create melodic flow
• Imagery operation → multi-layered symbolism + chained metaphor + surreal synesthesia
• Aesthetic tension → interplay of reality and abstraction, fusion of emotion and nature, psychological immersion

(5) Circuitous Opening
A circuitous opening is an indirect introduction, not stating the theme directly but gradually leading the reader into the poem’s core through sidelong description, trivial fragments, or situational buildup. From the perspective of modern poetic rhetoric, it has these characteristics:

1. Psychological guidance and gradual presupposition
   By focusing on details or marginal phenomena, readers gradually discover the theme, establishing cognitive anticipation and progressive emotional engagement. This strategy creates an “aesthetic exploration,” hiding the theme within imagery and narrative, enhancing participation and cognitive depth.
2. Multi-layered tension of imagery and language rhythm
   Starting from seemingly unrelated details, temporal fragments, or situational depiction, circuitous openings accumulate imagery that generates aesthetic tension. As the theme gradually emerges, implicit associations between images evoke psychological resonance, engaging the reader emotionally before the theme is explicit.
3. Interplay of reality and abstraction with emotional metaphor
   The opening presents surface-level situations or mundane life, implicitly embedding philosophical or emotional cues. This interplay of reality and abstraction enhances subtlety and encourages the reader to construct meaning actively, increasing aesthetic depth and interest.
4. Aesthetic effect
   Through this winding layout, the poem exhibits multi-layered tension in rhythm, imagery, and emotion, creating the experience of “not being told directly but inferred by the reader.” It combines psychological engagement with reflective imagery.

Example: Colonel by Ya Xian

That was purely another kind of rose,
Born from flames,
In the buckwheat field they encountered the greatest battle,
And one of his legs departed in 1943…

Analysis:

1. Opening strategy and psychological guidance

• The first line does not mention the colonel but opens with a symbol (rose), evoking associations of beauty, fragility, or cruelty born from war.
• Fire, buckwheat field, and leg loss gradually establish historical context and emotional atmosphere.

1. Imagery chains and emotional tension

• Fire → devastation of war
• Buckwheat field → mundane life vs. war
• Lost leg → personal trauma and historical tragedy
• Rose → symbol of beauty, life, and resilience

1. Language rhythm and emotional progression

• Short, fragmented sentences simulate the fractured memory of history and reflect psychological fragmentation.
• Mundane and philosophical interweaving enhances emotional tension, requiring readers to connect details and themes.

1. Rhetorical summary

• Opening strategy → circuitous, starting with details and symbols, gradually revealing theme
• Imagery operation → layered imagery + reality-abstraction interplay + personal trauma symbolism
• Emotional rhythm → winding, narrative, psychological participation
• Aesthetic effect → readers explore the theme within imagery and emotion, achieving dual psychological and sensory immersion

(6) Close-up Opening
A close-up opening (microcosmic focus) magnifies partial details of a person, object, or scene to immediately capture the reader’s visual and emotional attention.

1. Dual visual and psychological focus
   By using a local image as a sensory entry point, the reader is “pulled in” psychologically, creating immersion and immediacy. The partial depiction is concrete and symbolic, triggering association and focusing attention on the poem’s thematic or emotional core.
2. Condensed imagery and amplified emotion
   A single object, limb, or fragment can condense broader historical, cultural, or emotional meaning, forming a highly symbolic expression.
3. Language rhythm and tension construction
   Close-ups often use concise, repetitive, or stacked phrasing, visually enlarging the image and psychologically intensifying it, creating rhythm and tension.
4. Aesthetic effect
   Transforms grand themes or complex emotions into a tangible focus, letting readers experience holistic feelings through subtle sensory stimuli, achieving the interplay of reality and abstraction, emotion, and imagery.

Example: Red Corn by Ya Xian

The wind blew in the Xuantong year,
Blowing on that string of red corn…

Analysis follows similarly to previous examples: partial imagery condenses historical memory, repeated phrasing amplifies emotion, establishing aesthetic immersion.

(7) Suspenseful Opening
A suspenseful opening generates psychological tension by introducing doubt or unresolved situations, creating curiosity and expectation.

1. Psychological engagement and expectation construction
   The opening provokes “why?” or “what happens next?” questions, motivating continued reading.
2. Emotional and imagistic cues
   Suspense subtly embeds emotional hints, letting abstract feelings unfold psychologically.
3. Rhythm and language tension
   Short sentences, blank spaces, or image jumps create both suspense and rhythmic tension, preparing for later thematic release.
4. Aesthetic effect
   Establishes a “unknown—exploration—understanding” reading structure, merging curiosity, emotional resonance, and image experience.

Example: Comfort by Gu Cheng

Green wild grapes
Faint yellow little moon
Mom worries
How to make jam…

(8) Contrastive Opening
A contrastive opening emphasizes tension and depth by juxtaposing opposing or complementary elements, enhancing theme and imagery depth.

1. Psychological tension and emotional impact
   Juxtaposition creates mental tension, stimulating curiosity and thought, deepening emotional engagement.
2. Image prominence and symbolic extension
   Contrasts make images vivid and allow symbolic layers (e.g., youth vs. old age, city vs. countryside, movement vs. stillness).
3. Rhythm and structural dynamics
   Short lines, repeated phrases, or spacing create rhythm and visual contrast, guiding the reader’s psychological tempo.
4. Aesthetic effect
   Multi-dimensional contrasts of reality, motion, time, and emotion deliver simultaneous sensory, psychological, and emotional resonance.

Example: Rainfall by Xiang Yang

At the age to venture out,
A boy yearns for city splendor…
An old man waiting for grandchildren, holding a tea cup…

(9) Associative Opening
An associative opening uses specific, concrete elements to guide readers toward deeper thematic meanings.

1. Psychological and cognitive connection
   Concrete elements trigger associative reasoning from part to whole, creating thematic expectation.
2. Image extension and thematic resonance
   Daily objects are extended into symbols or metaphors, merging imagery with theme.
3. Language rhythm and psychological immersion
   Flat, fragmentary, or narrative language encourages natural mental association, leading readers into emotional immersion.
4. Aesthetic effect
   Facilitates simultaneous cognitive and emotional engagement, merging imagery with theme for deep immersion.

Example: Ventriloquism by Xia Yu

I entered the wrong room,
Missed my own wedding…
Through a wall crack, I saw everything intact…

(10) Personified Opening
Personification attributes human qualities to non-human entities, evoking immediate emotional and psychological engagement.

1. Emotional empathy and psychological involvement
   Non-human elements gain human traits, making abstract or natural elements relatable, enhancing reader empathy.
2. Vivid imagery and visualization
   Abstract or static objects become dynamic and emotionally expressive.
3. Language rhythm and sensory resonance
   Short lines, enumeration, and stacking produce rhythm and sensory resonance.
4. Aesthetic effect
   Creates multi-layered resonance among reader’s mind, emotions, and senses, concretizing abstract themes with interplay of reality and symbolism.

Example: Home by Yang Huan

Leaves are cradles for caterpillars,
Flowers are beds for butterflies,
Singing birds have cozy nests…

II. Using Clues to Develop Context

The function of a "clue" is to sift and filter the material obtained through associative activities within a poem, then arrange it according to certain criteria, combining each element step by step to form paragraphs and layers (context), which run through the entire text to express the theme. Without a clear clue—or if the clue is unclear—the material becomes chaotic, paragraphs disorderly, and images tangled and confusing. Below are several commonly used types of clues:

(1) Chronological and Reverse Chronological Order: Using the forward or backward progression of time as a clue.

《Kunling》 / Ya Xian
At sixteen, her name was already drifting through the city
A kind of mournful rhythm
Those almond-colored arms should have been guarded by an official
Little hair, hearts of Qing people shattered for her
It must be Yutangchun
《Every Night, Sunflower Seeds in the Garden!》
‘Bitter…’
Her hands in shackles
Someone said
She had lived with a White Russian officer in Khabarovsk
A mournful rhythm
Every woman cursed her in every city

The poem Kunling tells the tragic early life of a female performer in chronological order, starting from her life at sixteen performing in a big city to make a living. Many men were infatuated and heartbroken over her, becoming the target of womens resentment and curses. Later, she lived with a White Russian officer. Each scene, recounted in memory, follows the timeline to sketch the actress’s background and experiences.

《An Afternoon Painting Lotus》 / Xi Murong
My life could have had
Different encounters if
On the lotus after the new rain
You had just walked quietly by
My life could have had

That July afternoon, if
If you had not looked back

The last two lines, originally meant to appear at the beginning, are placed at the end by the poet, who carefully tells the result and process first, leaving the cause at the end. This clearly creates a sense of "suspense," piquing the reader’s curiosity about the "reason." The original chronological order restored by the author is:

If, that July afternoon
If you had not looked back
If, on the lotus after the new rain
You had just walked quietly by
My life could have had
Different encounters

The logical flow of imagery is smoother in this order, but it lacks the suspenseful atmosphere, and feels less "romantic and emotional."

(2) Using Spatial Orientation or Location Changes as Clues:

《Let the Wind Recite》 / Yang Mu

1
If I could write for you a
Summer poem, when the reeds
Proliferate violently, sunlight
Fills the waist and flows
Between your feet
As a new drum
Breaks, if I could

Write for you an autumn poem
Rocking on a small boat
Soaking twelve markers
When sorrow curls up on the riverbed
Like a yellow dragon, letting the flood rush
Rise from wounded eyes
Splashing, if I could write for you

A winter poem
As if finally witnessing ice and snow
The shrunken lake
Witnessing someone visiting at midnight
Awakening a hastily made dream
Taking you to a distant province
Giving you a lantern, asking you
To sit quietly and wait there
And forbidding you to cry

The poem progresses with the seasons, and each section’s scene changes accordingly—from summer reeds → autumn riverboat → winter’s shrunken lake—naturally conveying the poet’s emotions in sequence.

(3) Using the Characteristics of a Specific Object as a Clue: Most object-centered poems adopt this method.

《Tumor》 / Xiang Ming

You are hidden within the body
The kind of tumor
That must be removed to relieve the urge
A chronic, incurable
Disease

Except turning to ashes
You are not only allergic to pollen
During summer and autumn
Even a cicada’s shedding spasm
Makes you spasm
And you are stubborn like a cocoon in the palm
Peel one layer
Another is already pregnant

I absorb the essence of heaven and earth
You absorb me
I hold lightning in my mouth
You emit thunder
I hide fire in my chest
You light it into a lamp

In the end, all you want
Is to make me thin as a sheet of paper
On that paper, whatever
The sun and moon sweep past
Compete to cry and exclaim
This is the poem

The object-centered poem Tumor portrays the stubbornness of a tumor within the body and how it torments the human body: "to make me thin as a sheet of paper," revealing the tumor’s characteristics. The reading is intriguing, yet it conveys the poet’s helplessness and ambivalent feelings toward this “poetic tumor.”

(4) Using the Occurrence or Development of Events as Clues: This can include historical events or ongoing contemporary events. Most epics and social poems centered on societal events adopt this method.

《The Last Wang Muqi》 / Chen Li
Seventy days
We held our ground in the deep darkness
Listening to the dialogue between coal layers and water
The endless stillness repeats like a tape
Meticulously replaying our breaths
Roses on our lips, maggots on our shoulders
Occasionally, a firefly intrudes, reminding me
Of the morning star on our arrival
The Keelung River winds and twists
The maple trees at Sijiaoting are cold as frost
…

This poem uses the large-scale coal mining disasters in Taiwan during the 1980s as a simulated backdrop. Adopting a first-person plural narrative ("we"), it depicts miners trapped deep underground, struggling to survive under harsh conditions. The reading is deeply moving.

(5) Using the Character, Thoughts, Emotions, or Life Experiences of a Specific Person as Clues: Most narrative or monologue-based character poems adopt this approach.

《Madwoman》 / Ya Xian
If you laugh at me again, I will lift the street
Lift it toward that sky, uncontrolled by police, unreachable by flute
A chaotic starry sky
Laugh, laugh, laugh, laugh again
Maria will tie rainbows into knots to hang you.
In front of the angry statue of Moses, I sit
All of Africa’s currents hide in my hair
I sit, letting the hot wind blow me
Let the city noises rub my bare breasts round
I sit. Maria comes to claim me
And I follow her. I am a proper woman.
…

This poem is written in first-person monologue ("I") and vividly portrays a mentally unstable woman, showing her skewed perception of the real world. The reading elicits both laughter and tears, making it a reflective character poem.

(6) Using the Conflict or Contradiction of Thoughts and Emotions as Clues: Most monologue and epistolary lyric poems take this approach.

《The Dialectics of Love (Two Versions of One Theme)》 / Lo Fu
Tail of the story from Zhuangzi, Chapter on Daozi and Zou Zhi:
Weisheng waits for the girl under the beam. She does not come. Water rises, he clings to the beam and dies.

Version One: I wait for you in the water
Water knee-deep
Rising to the belly
Slowly to the throat
Floating eyes
Still brightly gaze
At a path paved with blue stones
Ears listening to skirts brushing thistles
Day by day
Month by month
A thousand times I rise and fall within my swollen body
Moss on the stone pillar is vivid
Oysters grow on my arms
Hair coils like a nest of water snakes in the rushing current
Clinging tightly to the bridge pier
I wait for you under a thousand fathoms
Water comes, I wait in water
Fire comes,
I wait in ashes

Version Two: I wait for you under the bridge
Wind furious, raindrops pounding like shoes on a bridge
Are they your hurried steps?
Holding the small umbrella we once shared in a gentle rain at dusk
Filling it with clouds and coins
The clinking sound
I wait under the bridge
Waiting for you to run from the rain
River swells
Rushing to feet, waist, submerging a gasping mouth
The whirlpool gradually forms the face of the dead
I begin to feel fear at the flowing current
Cold, lonely, empty
Like a fish after spawning
Sure that you will not come
The so-called “birds flying wing to wing in the sky”
I sadly pull a white feather
Then go ashore
It’s not that I’m heartless
Just that the water came faster than you
A bouquet of roses was swept away by the wave
One day it will reach your hands

The poem uses an epistolary style, with the speaker “I” and the addressee “you,” presenting two perspectives: Version One shows “unrepentant devotion in death,” while Version Two demonstrates “pragmatic adaptation.” Readers are encouraged to consider how the same scenario can produce two completely different outcomes.

《Letter of Separation》 / Chen Chufei
Last autumn you left without notice
The osmanthus in the courtyard nearly turned against me
No longer circling to listen to my storytelling
This autumn, even the underage swallows on the beam
Have moved their household registration elsewhere
All the autumn insects in the garden dark-eyed, blaming me
For the melancholy sound of my midnight flute
Moved too much, leaving them weak in spirit
Thinking of your parting words, they must have had hidden meaning
You ask nothing from me in this life
There’s elegance in simple meals
Telling me not to dwell on poetry’s fame
Yet how could I not linger over meaning, words, tone, and rhyme
As you entrusted yourself to me as a confidante
I never complained about our repetitive meals

Tonight, a cool breeze passes through the lattice window
From Zhuangzi’s autumn waters, I bring some coughs and colds
I pinch the kerosene lamp, about to undress and sleep
A faint melody echoes in the courtyard
Opening the door, it is an inexplicable autumn rain
Ah! Even a sentimental poet can be bewildered
Thinking of the lyrics I wrote for you over the years
Singing alone, some trailing rhymes I could never reach
Thinking of your favorite song by Weicheng, played while I was drunk
Tonight, the autumn rain moistens the light dust, and the phoenix tree outside
Gives me only one remaining leaf
Asking me to write a letter of separation in advance
To the wet, cold, pest-damaged autumn
And wait until the first snow falls
To learn to live simply with me

In this poem, the speaker is a struggling scholar abandoned by his wife. On an autumn night, he recalls moments with her and complains inwardly. Though the poem does not explicitly give a clue, readers can infer that many disputes occurred between them, leading the wife to leave.

(7) Interweaving Main and Secondary Narrative Threads: The main line serves as the core, with the secondary line providing supplementary explanation. Most narrative poems adopt this approach.

《Journey》 / Zheng Chouyu
You said to me, the lukewarm sunset like
A pregnant wife’s kiss. Last year
We were poor, stayed with many friends
Yet, we needed a nest
After the spring snow melts, the sprouting Chinese toon
Will briefly be loved

This year, we walked along the railroad
Resting on many utility poles
(Like carrying a placard)
Raising flags, keeping vigil
(Wish I could eat those compound leaves)
And first, we, afflicted by pests
Between two cities
The sunset shone again. Yet wife, wife
Was run over by the evening train… cough

Let the baby fall like a meteor
No need to mind the surname or inheritance
After the famine, there will still be war
I might as well become a mercenary
(I might as well become a mercenary)
I have married, fathered, and almost gone through it all

The main narrative portrays the tragic story of war-induced famine forcing countless people to flee. The protagonist, carrying his pregnant wife, temporarily shelters with friends. While escaping along the railroad, the wife dies. The secondary narrative reflects the protagonist’s despair and self-exile mindset after her death. This tragic depiction conveys anti-war compassion and humanistic spirit, giving the poem universal moral and socially purifying value.

(8) Using Explicit and Implicit Narrative Threads: This method gives a poem both surface and deeper meaning, allowing the text to convey rich, layered messages. Most allegorical poems adopt this technique.

《Love Poem of Tea》 / Zhang Cuo
4
We must hide
Gazing and entwining in the water
One cup of tea’s time
We decide on a single color

On the surface, the imagery shows tea leaves and teapot interacting through water, releasing the tea’s color—tea itself. At a deeper level, it symbolizes romantic love: the woman is the tea leaf, the man is the teapot that contains her. Through a period of interaction ("one cup of tea’s time") and gentle, flowing exchanges, their affection is established ("decide on a single color").

3. What Form and Structure Should Be Adopted?
In modern Chinese poetry, texts can be categorized by paragraph structure into several common forms: undivided (comprehensive), two-part, three-part, four-part, and multi-part.

(1) Comprehensive Form (Undivided)
Written in one continuous flow without paragraph breaks, often used for micro-poems or short poems, forming a complete, organic whole.

《Black Eyes》 / Gu Cheng
The night gave me black eyes
Yet I use them to seek the light

《Stream》 / Chen Chufei
Encountering chaotic rocks by chance
This guy became even more spittle-flying

(2) Two-Part Form
Includes cause-and-effect and contrast/opposition types. In the cause-and-effect type, the first part presents the cause, the second the effect; together they form a coherent narrative. In the contrast type, the first part presents a positive argument, the second a counterpoint; the juxtaposition of opposing elements forms a contrast.

① Cause-and-Effect Type
《Water Moon》 / Xiang Yang
Naturally, you always approach with lips serenely cherry-red
Resting on my eyelids, trembling into the dark night
Drifting in the misty tears of the mirror with a smile
Uncaring of the humid floating clouds at summer’s end
So long as I, following the wind, remember your frank expressions

But I dare only secretly comb your disordered hair
Let the trees smiling disdainfully in rows
Deep and bottomless, I love but hesitate to embrace you in dreams
When you leave, closing your eyes, I am suddenly startled
My cold-eyed passion, your kiss cold as ice

The first part shows “your” active approach—the cause. The second part reveals “my” hesitation—the effect. The final line, “my cold-eyed passion, your kiss cold as ice”, is a vivid phrase of contradictory imagery: my gaze is calm yet my heart burns; your eager kiss feels cold to the touch. These opposing images create a paired contrast.

② Contrast/Opposition Type
《Inflation》 / Fei Ma
A stack of banknotes
Once could buy
A smile

A stack of banknotes
Now can buy
Not just
A smile

This poem contrasts “then” and “now” to express the helplessness of people facing rapid inflation, showing that all they can do is respond with a wry smile.

(3) Three-Part Form
Consists of Introduction (raising or discovering the problem), Body (analyzing or discussing the problem), and Conclusion (seeking resolution). The introduction explains the cause and background; the body is the main section, analyzing and discussing; the conclusion seeks a solution.

《Youth》 / Xi Murong
All endings have been written
All tears have already set off
Yet suddenly I forget how it began
In that ancient summer that will never return

No matter how I pursue
The young you drifts past like a cloud shadow
Your faint smile gradually disappears
Behind the mountains after sunset

Opening that yellowed page
Fate bound it clumsily
Tearful, I read again and again
Yet I must admit
Youth is a book too hurriedly written

(4) Four-Part Form
Follows Qi-Cheng-Zhuan-He (Introduction → Development → Turn → Conclusion), each paragraph serving a distinct role in forming narrative continuity.

《You Said》 / Bei Dao
I knock with a secret code
You said: Come in, spring
I slowly remove my hat
Frost and snow cling to my temples

When I hold you
You said: Don’t panic, silly
A frightened fawn
Runs in your pupils

On my birthday
You said: No gifts
And my Cassiopeia
Already shone above your head

At the crossroads
You said: Don’t separate, forever
Bright car lights
Pass between us

(5) Multi-Part Form
Exceeds four parts, usually narrative in structure: Prologue → Development → Turn → Conflict → Climax → Conclusion.

《A Blossoming Tree》 / Xi Murong
How can I make you meet me
At my most beautiful moment

For this
I have prayed in front of Buddha for five hundred years
Praying that Buddha allow us a mortal bond
Moved by my sincere prayers,
Buddha transformed me into a tree
Growing along the path you must pass

Under sunlight
Carefully blooming
Each flower embodies my hopes from past lives

When you approach
Please listen carefully
To the trembling leaves
They are my passionate waiting

And when you finally pass by, indifferent
Behind you falls a whole ground of
Friends—ah,
Those are not petals
They are my withering heart

Xi Murong’s modern poems have captivated Taiwan for over forty years across two generations. Among current middle-aged readers, especially women, many were her devoted fans. The “eternal maiden” in her poetry embodies pure, transcendent idealism and romantic longing.

In A Blossoming Tree, the opening establishes the moment and context of love: “you meet me / at my most beautiful moment,” setting the prologue. The narrative unfolds to fulfill this wish, highlighting prior efforts (“I have prayed in front of Buddha for five hundred years”) and a miraculous intervention (“Buddha transformed me into a tree / growing along the path you must pass”). The story then turns to conflict: “when you finally pass by, indifferent,” marking the protagonist’s inner struggle. The climax: “they are not petals / they are my withering heart,” forms the story’s tragic conclusion.

Each paragraph performs a structural function along the sequence: Prologue → Development → Turn → Conflict → Climax → Conclusion, resulting in a deeply moving narrative of unrequited love, portrayed in sequential, vivid imagery.

4. What Organizational Structure Should Be Adopted?

I. Definition of Literary Structure
In literary texts, structure refers to the organized, ordered, and interrelated manner in which elements or components are arranged. At its most basic, structure can be understood as the layout and relationships among parts within a system, often conveying how the whole achieves meaning or function through the combination of these elements.

In linguistics, structure reflects the internal rules and relationships of language, such as phonemes, morphemes, words, and syntactic constructions. Structuralist linguist Ferdinand de Saussure noted that language is a system of signs, and the meaning of each unit arises through its opposition to others. In literature, structure encompasses elements such as plot arrangement, character relationships, narrative perspective, and themes. These components interact to create a particular reading effect. For instance, the structure of a novel can reveal specific themes or ideas through the protagonist’s psychological development, plot turning points, and the arrangement of the ending.

II. Structure in Modern Chinese Poetry
In modern poetry, based on the internal connections among textual components, structures can be classified as: vertical (linear), horizontal, interlaced vertical-horizontal, parallel, progressive, combined parallel-progressive, contrastive, cause-and-effect, or stream-of-consciousness. Through the following explanations, both poets and readers can gain a preliminary understanding of internal poetic structure.

(A) Vertical Structure
This structure develops along a vertical axis of emotion or time (linear timeline), with strong logical coherence, gradually leading to a climax. Examples include Yu Guangzhong’s Nostalgia (《鄉愁》) and Yang Ze’s Smoke (《煙》). They express feelings for one’s homeland through a sense of historical passage and narrative progression.

Typically, imagery is arranged according to the chronological occurrence, development, or cause-and-effect relationship of events. This structure is characterized by clear beginning and end, hierarchical layers, and mutual resonance between sequences, as seen in rhetorical devices like anaphora, parallelism, and concatenation (repetition of the last word to start the next line).

1. 《Nostalgia》 / Yu Guangzhong
Childhood
Nostalgia is a tiny postage stamp
I am on this side
Mother is on that side

Growing up
Nostalgia is a narrow boat ticket
I am on this side
The bride is on that side

Later
Nostalgia is a low, small grave
I am outside
Mother is inside

And now
Nostalgia is a shallow strait
I am on this side
The mainland is on that side

The poem uses parallel paragraphs as form and sequential parallelism in meaning. Three main threads intertwine:

1. Time: Childhood → Growing up → Later → Now
2. Space: Studying away → Visiting hometown → Separation by death → Across the strait
3. Familial affection: Correspondence → Visits → Eternal separation → Divide between mainland and freedom

Through sequential parallelism across time, space, and familial emotion, the poem’s imagery is vivid and evocative. Uniform sentence patterns give each paragraph a ballad-like melodic rhythm and even, unified cadence.

2. 《Smoke》 / Yang Ze
Read me — try hard to read me
I am a palm without fingerprints
I am a face without features
I am a clock without hands or marks
Read me — try hard to read me
I am a monument without inscriptions or dates
A monument fallen

Read me — try hard to read me
Neither palm nor face, neither clock nor monument
I am a microcosm, 80 billion times smaller
A lowercase, thin i
Read me — try hard to read me
I am life, I am love, I am the immortal
Soul, rising like smoke from the crematorium
A solitary plume of speech

Yang Ze uses parallel imagery with negation to reveal an abstract, featureless sense of existence. Layered negation and metaphor convey the poet’s inquiry into the essence of life and the ambiguity of being, revealing a strong consciousness of life through the invisible.

Structure of Parallel Imagery:

1. Construction: Begins with the repeated plea “Read me — try hard to read me,” a voice yearning to be understood. Subsequent lines present negations: “a palm without fingerprints,” “a face without features,” “a clock without hands,” “a monument without inscriptions,” symbolizing rejection of conventional human markers, detaching the self from worldly identifiers.
2. Deepening layers: In the lower half, “neither palm nor face, neither clock nor monument” emphasizes this negation, revealing a microscopic existence (the tiny i), symbolizing inner fragility.
3. Integration with theme: The poem culminates in “soul, rising like smoke from the crematorium,” uniting all negated images under the symbol of smoke, transforming from tangible to intangible, expressing eternal, immortal spirit.

The poem’s layered structure progressively reveals selfhood and finally presents an abstract existence. The plea to “read me” highlights the difficulty of comprehension, while repeated negations challenge the reader’s perception of physical existence, underscoring the poem’s core theme: the immortal soul. Smoke serves as the ultimate symbol, conveying reflection on life and being.

(B) Horizontal Structure
This structure “slices” phenomena horizontally, presenting different cross-sections. Through juxtaposition, poets reveal multiple facets of a subject, letting readers freely combine and imagine relationships without explicit temporal or logical connections, thereby clarifying essence through parallel representation.

Horizontal structure suits free placement of poetic material, creating a collage effect. Rhetorical devices like 列錦 (juxtaposed motifs) place multiple images side by side, forming visual or semantic contrasts, akin to postmodern imagery collage.

1. 《Station Messages》 / Chen Ke-hua
Amie, Acao
I first took the 11:37 southbound train, I do not hate you
If the typhoon arrives tomorrow
Call: (00)7127-998
Father left. Remember me, child
We’ll discuss later, sir
Money, do not wait for me
My home is not in Taipei Echo: ECHO
The work I owe you is already found
Long, long later, essence
And phenomenon conflict badly
Wish you return quickly
Three hens and cabbage
All fine
Your sincerest love, in brief
Returning to you

Chen Ke-hua’s poem employs horizontal structure, with each line like messages pinned on a station bulletin board. The lateral arrangement shows multiple characters’ emotions, life fragments, and connections. Without sequential time or logic, readers see interwoven life fragments, akin to fleeting encounters among strangers.

Horizontal Structure Usage:

• Each line is a “cross-section,” independent yet subtly interconnected.
• • “I first took the 11:37 southbound train, I do not hate you” — a decisive farewell mixed with calm.
  • “If the typhoon arrives tomorrow” — adds uncertainty and impending change.
  • “Father left. Remember me, child” / “Money, do not wait for me” — different voices, showing familial care and letting go.

Imagery Collage Usage:

• Daily life and interpersonal fragments combine into a collage.
• Symbolic and polysemous imagery:
• • “11:37 southbound” — ambiguous separation time
  • “Typhoon” — impending disruption
  • “Three hens and cabbage” — mundane domestic life, hinting at loneliness or nostalgic calm
• Images do not directly connect, but the horizontal layout produces a collage, conveying a chaotic, multifaceted scene that evokes thought and imagination.

(C) Interlaced Vertical-Horizontal Structure
Typically, events develop along a vertical “warp” (time) while horizontal “weft” threads (plot details and imagery) interweave. This preserves chronological coherence while allowing parallel spatial arrangement, enhancing clarity and avoiding flat narration.

2. 《Give Me a Better Rival in Love》 / Xia Yu (Li Gedi)
This is not the first time I hear her name
You are the prodigal we both loved
I do not truly care
To share you with others
I do not really mind
Your kisses
Bearing marks of another
If this is an unavoidable fate
Then at least give me a better rival in love
So I can enjoy the thrill of competition
So I can believe
Abandonment has its reason

This is not the first time I hear her story
You are the theme we both loved
I do not really grieve
To share all with another
I do not really fear
Your love
Looking here and there, concerned

If this is a fate I cannot avoid
I only ask for a better rival
So I can experience perfect jealousy
So I can feel
Another person
Sufficient to match my loneliness

Xia Yu’s poem demonstrates interlaced vertical-horizontal structure, intertwining emotional progression with plot development. This structure enriches temporal continuity and emotional layering, allowing readers to experience the theme’s depth and complexity.

• Vertical (time) development: Repeated phrases (“this is not the first time I hear her name/story”) indicate ongoing emotional experience, emphasizing familiarity and inevitability of the rival, giving a sense of cyclical time.
• Horizontal (plot/emotional cross-section): Repeated references (“you are the prodigal/theme we both loved”) reflect the complexity of a love triangle. Phrases like “at least let me have…” show evolving emotional responses—desire mixed with helplessness.
• Depth and parallel layers of emotion: Repeated “I do not really…” phrases conceal true feelings, revealing inner conflict, jealousy, loneliness, and acceptance. Cross-cutting emotions create a dynamic network, enhancing emotional richness.

The interlaced structure successfully integrates chronological progression and multi-layered emotions, enabling readers to grasp the protagonist’s inner world across multiple dimensions. Each overlapping and repeated fragment forms a dynamic emotional web, prompting reflection on unavoidable competition and solitude in love.

(4) Paratactic Structure
This structure narrates or describes various aspects of a subject in parallel, without prioritizing one over another, fully revealing its multiple facets. In rhetoric, this corresponds to devices such as antithesis, paratactic parallelism, and cataloguing.

“Slovenly Self-Narration” / Guan Guan
(Excerpt from the opening)
Kindergarten one year, lower elementary one year, upper elementary one year
Junior high three years, senior high three years, university four years, master’s two years, doctorate two years
Fortunately, I didn’t finish any of them
Five romances, two lovers, one wife, three children
Several enemies, two or three confidants, a few relatives
Years in the army, years drawing pay, yet no combat
One long gown, a few suits, and several pairs of jeans
One pot of tobacco, two cups of tea, three bowls of rice, one wooden bed, naturally vegetarian
No card games, no chess, a few worn-out books lying by the pillow to feign ignorance
A few false alarms, a few mishaps, a few minor illnesses survived
Sitting in the sunset hugging my knees, lost in thought

In Guan Guan’s poem Slovenly Self-Narration, the use of paratactic structure effectively presents the protagonist’s life and emotions. This structure, by organizing sentences in parallel, reveals the diverse facets of life. Below is an analysis of the paratactic structure in this poem, with examples.

1. Parallel Sentences:
   The poem begins with an account of “school years,” listing experiences from kindergarten to a doctorate, then reverses with “Fortunately, I didn’t finish any of them,” expressing irony and disdain for formal education. This contrast heightens the tension of the sentences.
   Later, the poem continues with parallel constructions like “Five romances, two lovers, one wife, three children.” Whether referring to love or family relationships, the paratactic presentation allows readers to clearly perceive the complexity of the poet’s emotional journey.
2. Varied Life Facets:
   As the poem progresses, the author enumerates multiple aspects of life, such as “Several enemies, two or three confidants, a few relatives.” This parallelism allows readers to sense the poet’s rich and multifaceted interpersonal relationships and life experiences.
   Similarly, items like “One long gown, a few suits, and several pairs of jeans” illustrate the poet’s casual attitude toward clothing and hint at a subtle rebellion against social norms.
3. Life’s Resignation and Reflection:
   The ending line, “Sitting in the sunset hugging my knees, lost in thought,” uses parataxis to emphasize the passage of time and reflection on life. Here, the poet conveys contemplation of past experiences, suggesting loneliness and resignation.

Guan Guan’s Slovenly Self-Narration uses paratactic structure to present a rich, multi-dimensional life, creating strong contrasts and reflections through parallel arrangement. This structural choice not only enhances expressive power but also allows readers to understand the poet’s attitude and insights toward life. Compared with other contemporary poets, this paratactic narration is a common technique in modern poetry for conveying both emotion and theme.

(5) Progressive Structure
This structure arranges material in a sequential manner, gradually advancing from small to large, from surface to depth, or from shallow to profound, systematically uncovering thoughts and reasoning. In rhetoric, this corresponds to climax and anadiplosis.

Guan Guan / Lotus
“Once, it was a lake after lake of mud.”
“You mean these fields after fields of lotus flowers?”
“Now it has become marsh after marsh.”
“You mean these pools after pools of buildings?”
“Not exactly, but rather rooftops after rooftops of lotus flowers.”

In Guan Guan’s Lotus, the progressive structure deepens meaning and emotion, forming a step-by-step process of reflection. The following is a detailed analysis of this structure in the poem.

1. From Concrete to Abstract:
   The poem begins with “Once, it was a lake after lake of mud,” describing a concrete natural scene, where mud symbolizes the origin and vitality of nature.
   As the poem progresses to “You mean these fields after fields of lotus flowers,” the focus shifts from mud to lotus flowers, emphasizing life’s continuity and transformation, progressing from the foundation of life to the beauty of its manifestation.
2. Layered Scene Progression:
   The subsequent lines, “Now it has become marsh after marsh” and “You mean these pools after pools of buildings,” contrast natural and urban environments. The marsh represents undeveloped nature, while the buildings symbolize urbanization. This progression reflects human intervention in nature. The progressive dialogue allows readers to feel the environmental changes and human impact.
3. Emotional Deepening:
   The final line, “Not exactly, but rather rooftops after rooftops of lotus flowers,” carries a heavier tone, suggesting lotus flowers persist in the city but in a transformed form. This response prompts reflection on the current state. The deliberate misplacement of classifiers and the sequence of images create a playful reading experience while highlighting the uncertainty behind these objects—the underlying philosophical message of the poem.

Through progressive structure, Lotus gradually reveals the relationship between nature, the city, humans, and environment, enriching meaning and emotional resonance. This step-by-step approach adds layers to the poem, deepening reflection on environmental transformation.

(6) Combined Paratactic-Progressive Structure
When arranging materials, combining parallelism and progression adds breadth and depth, making the exposition more comprehensive and profound.

“Friction: Indescribable” / Xia Yu
Cat, today, heard
you call me back to a
mingling, Baroque-style
understanding; cat, the problem
is my forgetting
like a ghost; my
guilt like opera; my
insomnia hikes
through the wilderness; the problem is
cat, my spinning
if it is meaningless
my softness is
that regret, my
warmth is this
wandering cat
my flickering, my collision
is exactly
its favorite fish

In Xia Yu’s Friction: Indescribable, the combined paratactic-progressive structure simultaneously conveys breadth and depth of meaning.

1. Paratactic Expression:
   The poem frequently uses parataxis, e.g., “Cat,” “my forgetting,” “my guilt,” arranged in parallel, forming independent yet complementary images that enhance multiplicity and scope. For instance, the opening lines “Cat, today, heard” and “you call me back to a” illustrate intimacy between poet and cat and provoke reflection on understanding.
2. Progressive Emotional Deepening:
   On this paratactic base, the lines progressively explore deeper emotions and thoughts. Metaphors like “my forgetting like a ghost” and “my guilt like opera” move from superficial description to internal struggle. This progressive structure leads readers from the cat’s call into the poet’s inner world, experiencing insomnia and wilderness as metaphorical depths.

Comprehensive Structure:
The poem integrates parallelism with progressive emotional depth. The ending, “my flickering, my collision is exactly its favorite fish,” synthesizes prior images, highlighting interaction and dependence between cat and poet. This combined structure enriches content and renders emotional expression more multi-dimensional and complete.

Xia Yu’s use of this combined structure effectively presents multiple layers of emotion and imagery, allowing readers to perceive the poet’s internal struggles and reflections, culminating in an emotional resolution and release—a dynamic, layered emotional universe.

(7) Contrastive Structure
This structure divides material into opposing parts, creating vivid contrasts. It stems from the aesthetic concept of unity of opposites, juxtaposing opposing matters or sentiments to form a positive-negative contrast, leaving a strong impression. It can highlight differences in color, imagery, and essence, reflect characters’ traits, or enable argumentation through clear dichotomies.

“Water Song” / Xiang Yang
Cheers. Twenty years later
we must have aged, like falling leaves
all over the ground. The garden’s small path is dim
let us walk together
at night, lifting lamps

Casually. Twenty years ago
we were young, like flowers blooming
branches abundant. Under the trees, morning red drops in rain
listen to us at the west window
chanting, slowly singing autumn hues

Xiang Yang’s Water Song uses contrastive structure to depict the passage of time and its changes, enhancing emotional depth and theme.

1. Temporal Contrast:
   The poem begins with “Twenty years later” and “Twenty years ago,” clearly separating two temporal stages. This temporal contrast forms the poem’s core structure, letting readers sense past and future differences.
   “Twenty years later” portrays aging—“like falling leaves all over the ground”—highlighting life’s impermanence. “Twenty years ago” evokes youthful vitality—“like flowers blooming, branches abundant.”
2. Emotional Contrast:
   Emotions in these periods contrast strongly. The “twenty years later” section conveys resignation and gentle melancholy; fallen leaves imply loss and nostalgia. In contrast, the earlier period brims with life, hope, and vitality, e.g., “morning red drops in rain” symbolizes anticipation and beauty.
3. Imagery Contrast:
   Imagery strengthens contrast: fallen leaves and dim paths create quiet and desolate mood; blooming flowers and abundant branches convey youthful vigor. Lines like “listen to us at the west window chanting, slowly singing autumn hues” evoke harmony and tranquility, while “lifting lamps” suggests remembrance and reluctance to let go.

Through contrastive structure, Water Song effectively conveys profound reflection on time’s passage. The juxtaposition of “twenty years later” and “twenty years ago” sharpens structural clarity and emotional resonance, revealing life’s impermanence and the wisdom of seeking harmony amid change.

(8) Causal Structure
This structure organizes material according to cause-and-effect relationships. Events are arranged so causes lead to results, or effects are used to trace back to causes.

“End of Poetry” / Xiong Hong
Love is a poem written in blood
Joyful blood and self-inflicted blood are equally sincere
Knife scars and kiss marks alike
Sorrow or joy
Forgiveness or hatred
Because in love, you must forgive
And I have already bowed my head
Fate encases me in a well of cold bricks
Binding me
Forcing me to cry forth a spring
Never to release it
Even if my tears, thinking of you,
flood into a river
Because it is inevitable
Because fate is absolute and tyrannical
Because in love
Knife scars and kiss marks alike
you must forgive

Xiong Hong’s End of Poetry employs causal structure to explore love’s complexity, intertwining emotions with cause-and-effect logic.

1. Unfolding Causality:
   The opening line, “Love is a poem written in blood,” defines love and sets up subsequent emotional fluctuations.
   “Joyful blood and self-inflicted blood are equally sincere” links cause (sincerity) to effect (blood of joy or self-harm).
2. Emotional Contradiction and Interaction:
   “Knife scars and kiss marks alike” juxtaposes pain and pleasure in love. This duality arises from love’s complexity, creating a causal relationship: deep love necessitates both experiences.
3. Fate’s Ruthlessness and Emotional Interweaving:
   “Fate encases me in a well of cold bricks” emphasizes restriction and inevitability. The cause (harsh fate) results in emotional suffering (helplessness and sorrow).
   “Cry forth a spring, never to release” shows constraints forcing emotions to remain contained—love’s pain and tears become inevitable.
4. Accumulated Emotion and Result:
   “Even if my tears, thinking of you, flood into a river” demonstrates that longing (cause) produces overflowing tears (effect), reinforcing love’s bittersweetness.
   Reiterating “because inevitable” and “because fate is absolute and tyrannical” elevates causality to the level of fate, resonating with emotional suffering.

In End of Poetry, Xiong Hong skillfully uses causal structure, revealing love’s complexity and contradictions. Emotional fluctuations and fate’s constraints intertwine, producing profound, sincere emotional depth. This structure strengthens emotional tension, showing love’s coexistence of pain and beauty, prompting reflection on its essence.

(9) Associative Opening

An associative opening is a strategy of psychological and imagistic guidance (associative rhetoric). By depicting concrete objects, scenes, or figures related to the theme, it leads readers toward deeper thematic significance through association. From the perspective of modern poetry rhetoric and aesthetics, the associative opening exhibits the following characteristics:

1. Psychological and Cognitive Connection

• The concrete elements or situations described at the opening do not directly explicate the theme; instead, they stimulate the reader’s associative faculty, forming a psychological process of understanding that moves “from the part to the whole.”
• This strategy allows readers to participate in the construction of meaning at an early stage, establishing thematic anticipation and psychological expectancy.

2. Extension of Imagery and Thematic Resonance

• The associative opening extends partial, incidental, or everyday objects into symbols or metaphors, granting imagery multilayered significance.
• Through association, readers map concrete experiences onto abstract themes at a psychological level, achieving an integration of imagery and theme.

3. Linguistic Rhythm and Psychological Immersion

• Such openings often employ plain, fragmented, or narrative language, enabling readers to complete associative processes within a naturally flowing context.
• The rhythm of language works in tandem with association, gradually guiding readers into the poem’s emotional atmosphere.

4. Aesthetic Effect

• Associative openings operate simultaneously on cognitive and emotional levels, allowing imagery and theme to merge organically and producing a highly immersive aesthetic experience.
• This mode is particularly suited to modern poetry that explores complex inner emotions or multilayered imagery, as it organically links abstract psychology with the concrete world.

Ventriloquism ∕ Xia Yu

I walked into the wrong room
and missed my own wedding.
Through the only crack in the wall, I saw
everything proceeding perfectly. He wore white,
she held flowers—rituals, vows, a kiss.
Behind it all: fate, the ventriloquism I painfully mastered
(the tongue, that warm aquatic beast,
trained to writhe
inside a tiny aquarium).
The beast said: Yes, I do.

Xia Yu’s Ventriloquism unfolds through an associative opening:

I walked into the wrong room
and missed my own wedding.
Through the only crack in the wall, I saw
everything proceeding perfectly.

1. Opening Strategy and Psychological Guidance

• The opening lines, “I walked into the wrong room / and missed my own wedding,” appear to describe an accidental incident, yet immediately evoke associations of missed life opportunities, irreversibility of time, and psychological regret.
• By using partial concreteness (the room, the wedding) to trigger association, the poem extends specific action into abstract emotion and existential reflection.

2. Imagery and Symbolic Analysis

• The crack in the wall → psychological barriers; a detached, spectator’s perspective on life
• The wedding proceeding perfectly → an idealized life; fate beyond personal control
• Ventriloquism → a metaphor for inner manipulation or self-expression, symbolizing a subtle psychological dialogue with fate
• The aquatic beast → inner desire and emotional energy, suggesting vitality and unrestrained emotional flow

3. Rhetorical Strategy

• Associative chain: concrete event (missing the wedding) → psychological response (regret, detachment) → symbolic imagery (ventriloquism, aquatic beast) → theme (fate, psychological agency)
• Rhythmic structure: short lines and fragmented narration create psychological pauses, allowing readers to complete associative leaps
• Symbolic psychological mapping: ventriloquism and the aquatic beast concretize inner mental processes, enhancing affective engagement

4. Aesthetic Effect

• The associative opening enables the poem to operate simultaneously on psychological and symbolic levels, allowing readers to grasp the theme through concrete experience
• Layered imagery intensifies emotional tension and psychological depth
• The interplay of reality and abstraction—concrete events mirroring inner states—produces a distinctly immersive modern-poetic aesthetic

Concise Summary: Highlights of the Associative Opening in Ventriloquism

• Opening association: missing a wedding → existential loss and psychological regret
• Imagery chain: crack in the wall, ventriloquism, aquatic beast → fate, self-expression, inner desire
• Rhetorical framework: associative chain structure + symbolic imagery + rhythmic pauses
• Aesthetic force: psychological participation + emotional resonance + interweaving of reality and abstraction

(10) Personified Opening

A personified opening is a rhetorical technique that endows non-human entities with human traits (personification). By attributing emotion, will, or action to animals, objects, time, or natural phenomena, it immediately engages readers’ emotional resonance and psychological participation. From the perspective of modern poetry rhetoric and aesthetics, personified openings display the following characteristics:

1. Emotional Identification and Psychological Participation

• By granting non-human elements human qualities, the opening enables readers to perceive imagery through human-like emotion and sensibility.
• Such emotional identification renders abstract or natural elements intimate and tangible, facilitating psychological resonance.

2. Vivid Imagery and Concretization

• Personification animates abstract, static, or inanimate objects, making their actions and emotions perceptible.
• This vividness strengthens visual impact and emotional impression, giving the opening strong artistic tension.

3. Linguistic Rhythm and Sensory Resonance

• Personified openings often employ short lines, enumeration, and layering to establish rhythm, while evoking sensory response through actions and emotions.
• These techniques immerse readers in the poetic world from the outset.

4. Aesthetic Effect

• Through emotionalized and animated imagery, personified openings generate multilayered resonance across psychological, emotional, and sensory dimensions.
• Abstract themes—such as home, life, or natural order—are presented concretely and affectively, producing an aesthetic of interwoven reality and symbolism.

Home ∕ Yang Huan

Leaves are the cradle of little caterpillars.
Flowers are butterflies’ beds.
Singing birds all have comfortable nests.
Diligent ants and bees live in splendid dormitories.
Crabs and little fish make their homes in blue streams.
The endless green plains are the homeland of grasshoppers and dragonflies.
Poor wind has no home—
running east and west, it finds nowhere to rest.
Drifting clouds have no home—
when the sky darkens, they weep without restraint.
Little brothers and sisters are the most fortunate of all:
born with parents who prepare a home for them,
they grow up safely and securely within it.

Yang Huan’s Home employs a personified opening:

Leaves are the cradle of little caterpillars.
Flowers are butterflies’ beds.
Singing birds all have comfortable nests.
Diligent ants and bees live in splendid dormitories.
Crabs and little fish make their homes in blue streams.
The endless green plains are the homeland of grasshoppers and dragonflies.
Poor wind has no home,
drifting clouds have no home.

1. Opening Strategy and Psychological Guidance

• The opening directly concretizes and emotionalizes the dwellings of nature and small creatures, capturing attention and generating resonance.
• Through personification, readers naturally associate these images with the meaning of “home”: warmth, shelter, and stability.

2. Imagery and Symbolic Analysis

• Leaves, flowers, birds, ants, bees, crabs, fish, plains → concrete imagery symbolizing home and natural order
• Wind and clouds → symbols of homelessness, solitude, and drifting
• Children → human happiness and familial security, contrasted with natural wandering, emphasizing the importance of home

3. Rhetorical Strategy

• Personification: endowing nature and animals with emotion and agency
• Enumeration and layering: rhythmic accumulation of “homes,” enriching visual texture
• Contrast: creatures with homes vs. homeless wind and clouds, intensifying thematic and emotional tension

4. Aesthetic Effect

• Personification renders the concept of home visible, tangible, and emotionally resonant
• Enumeration and contrast generate rhythm and imagistic depth, blending childlike innocence with philosophical reflection
• The interweaving of concreteness and abstraction creates both intimacy and symbolic depth

Concise Summary: Highlights of the Personified Opening in Home

• Opening strategy: personified nature and animals constructing the imagery of home
• Imagery layout: leaves, flowers, birds, ants, bees, crabs, fish, plains, wind, clouds, children
• Rhetorical framework: personification + enumeration + contrast
• Aesthetic force: psychological resonance + emotional identification + interweaving of reality and symbolism

(11) Presentational Opening

A presentational opening unfolds scenes and narrative through imagined projection, retrospection, or anticipation (narrative-visual rhetoric). It is commonly used in narrative or story-oriented modern poetry. From the perspective of modern poetry rhetoric and aesthetics, presentational openings exhibit the following features:

1. Temporal and Spatial Orientation

• Such openings often include explicit or metaphorical temporal markers (e.g., “that year,” “at that time”) and spatial cues (e.g., “Taipei,” “Togetsu Bridge”), establishing psychological orientation for readers.
• These temporal-spatial cues may be abstracted or concretized, enabling vivid mental visualization.

2. Parallel Development of Narrative and Imagery

• Events, characters, and psychology are presented simultaneously, producing both visual scenes and emotional dynamics.
• Readers experience the poem as if watching a miniature theater, immediately entering the situation.

3. Emotional Progression and Psychological Guidance

• Through retrospection or anticipation, readers sense the gradual unfolding of characters’ inner states, enhancing emotional resonance.
• Emotional tension emerges naturally from details and fragments rather than direct thematic declaration.

4. Imagery and Aesthetic Effect

• Imagery is multilayered, combining motion and stillness: temporal flow, objects, actions, and inner states interweave.
• The presentational effect fuses emotion, imagery, and narrative into a deeply immersive aesthetic experience.

“Embroidering Spring”

by Matsuo Kareha

Snowflakes whirl through the air; the woman embroiders her longing
into a bolt of spring, cutting it into a kimono.
She lingers on Togetsu Bridge, where cherry blossoms have just begun to bloom.
Her lover who marched off to war still remains overseas,
amid flames, smoke, and gunpowder.
Apart from a single engagement ring,
all that remains are occasional letters reporting his safety.

The woman resigns herself to waiting,
like so many other wives—
a kite clenched in her hand.
She endures wind and snow in silence, awaiting
the verdict of fate:
death and separation in a foreign land,
or a return after surviving catastrophe.
Even if he should come back missing an arm or a leg,
they would still meet,
and from then on walk hand in hand through the rest of their lives.

After spring passes, the cicadas in the woods sing—
lyrical as a 33-rpm vinyl record,
often summoning beautiful memories:
her lover picking wildflowers of every color,
weaving them into a wreath, adorning her as a bride;
catching sweetfish for her, serving them on a grill,
playing the jew’s harp on lush green grass.

When autumn arrives, freshly picked berries
are preserved into jam and brewed into wine;
various wagashi sweets are baked
as gifts for their dates, to delight her.
Before the winter snow, she begins crocheting a scarf,
wrapping two youthful faces close together,
letting not a single word of love escape into the wind.

The woman grips the end of the kite string,
afraid to imagine that once it snaps,
who else would ever be willing
to hold her gently in the palm of their hand,
to gaze deeply at a single cherry blossom,
pouring into it a love without regret, yet filled with reluctance to part.

Analysis of the Presentational Opening in “Embroidering Spring”

Matsuo Kareha’s “Embroidering Spring” employs a presentational (in-medias-vision) opening, as seen in the lines:

Snowflakes whirl through the air; the woman embroiders her longing
into a bolt of spring, cutting it into a kimono.
She lingers on Togetsu Bridge, where cherry blossoms have just begun to bloom.
Her lover who marched off to war still remains overseas,
amid flames, smoke, and gunpowder.
Apart from a single engagement ring,
all that remains are occasional letters reporting his safety.

1. Opening Strategy and Psychological Guidance

• The first line, “Snowflakes whirl through the air,” establishes the temporal and spatial setting, immediately immersing the reader in a cold, desolate psychological atmosphere.
• “Embroidering a bolt of spring” externalizes inner emotion, transforming longing into a tangible act, guiding readers to intuitively enter the woman’s emotional world.

2. Imagery and Symbolism

• Snowflakes → the passage of time, solitude
• Embroidering spring → longing, emotional creation, hope
• Togetsu Bridge & early cherry blossoms → spatial and seasonal markers that heighten visual imagery
• Engagement ring & letters → love, commitment, and enforced distance
• Grasping the kite string → control and expectation; a symbol of fate and the fragility of love

3. Rhetorical Strategies

• Presentational scenic construction: the poem builds a complete tableau through the alignment of action + time + space.
• Juxtaposition of psychology and action: embroidery, waiting, gripping the string—all physical gestures that reveal inner emotion.
• Layered imagery: snow → cherry blossoms → kite → letters, progressing from environment to emotional depth.

4. Aesthetic Effect

• The presentational opening fuses psychology, imagery, and emotion, creating an almost theatrical intimacy that draws readers into the woman’s solitude and devotion.
• Temporal flow and meticulous detail intensify visual resonance and emotional empathy.
• The symbolic density and layered imagery enhance the poem’s depth and aesthetic richness.

Concise Summary: Highlights of the Presentational Opening in “Embroidering Spring”

• Opening Strategy → Temporal-spatial cues + action depiction + psychological projection
• Imagery Layout → Snowflakes, embroidery, Togetsu Bridge, cherry blossoms, letters, kite
• Rhetorical Framework → Presentational technique + alignment of psyche and action + layered imagery
• Aesthetic Tension → Immersive imagery + emotional resonance + multi-layered symbolism

(12) Metatextual Opening

This approach takes another poet’s modern poem as its object and engages in metatextual creation, commonly known as a response poem or elegant exchange poem. Such poems may be further classified into three types:

1. Continuative type – extending the theme or narrative of the prior text;
2. Innovative type – using the prior text as a catalyst for new inspiration;
3. Subversive type – adopting a critical or even negating stance toward the prior text.

“Punctuation Marks”

by Chen Qufei

Each drifting punctuation mark bares its teeth and claws in the wind.
In the breeze, yellow leaves flutter one by one.
Each punctuation mark—once memory breaks from its branch,
the subsequent plot unfolds much the same:
wherever it lands, it decays there.
I think of that letter of divorce I wrote to you,
still unstamped, never sent.

Where could it possibly be delivered? My first love—
surely already reduced to ashes, scattered by the wind.
And you, from the far edge of sea and sky,
have only just drifted into the window of my story.
That wandering cloud—unless
I add some agar powder to you, who cry and laugh so easily,
pour you into a mold to set as a soft, springy jelly,
not only pleasantly chewy, but leaving behind a few words
like metaphors, ambiguously tart.

Everything that should be said is carved upon the flying yellow leaves,
one leaf, one line of poetry.
I let you arrange the line breaks at will, allow you,
after each misreading, to affix a postmark
and send them back to my window for me to reclaim,
to mount and preserve, placing them in the misty forest of dreams.
They turn into fireflies, like inspiration—
obedient, well-behaved, blinking with faint glimmers of light,
constantly reminding me that when I love you,
I should be gentler than the west wind, more considerate,
and indulge in a little more dream talk…

“Punctuation Marks” — A Poetic Response to Chen Qufei

by Xia Muxue

The wind flips clauses and pauses.
Those hesitant commas, wavering caesuras,
lose their footing at the edge of the season,
like yellow leaves unable to return to their places,
falling outside grammar.
Once they leave the sentence,
fate begins to simplify:
either a question mark, or a full stop.
Rehearsed repeatedly by rain,
learning how, in unfamiliar soil,
to slowly lose their voices.

I, too, once wrote a letter,
lacking only the final punctuation.
That tiny postage stamp
could never quite be affixed—
as if once it were,
the past would be formally pronounced.
You were once an exclamation mark
suddenly appearing at the beginning of a sentence,
arriving too brightly, making me forget for a moment
how the rest should be laid out.
So I let emotion drag on into an ellipsis,
ticking again and again through the night.

If I could place you back between the lines,
I would be willing to carefully adjust the syntax,
to make love less sharp,
like a soft pair of parentheses,
gathering both tears and laughter inside.
Those sentences you misread—
please send them back, no need to correct them.
I will stamp them with the postmark of old dreams
and store them in the margins’ blank space.
When the forest fills with mist, punctuation will glow,
flickering, reminding me—
that truly gentle poetry
is not about finishing what is said,
but about knowing
where to stop.

Critical Commentary

Xia Muxue’s “Punctuation Marks”, written as a response to Chen Qufei, exemplifies a classic continuative metatextual exchange, while simultaneously demonstrating a highly refined innovative transposition. She precisely inherits the core metaphor of the original poem—punctuation as emotional nodes and verdicts of fate—yet transforms Chen’s more narrative-driven and emotionally expansive trajectory into a language of abstraction, restraint, and introspection.

Phrases such as “either a question mark, or a full stop” and “the final punctuation / the past would be formally pronounced” successfully elevate emotional relationships into an isomorphic structure of grammar and destiny. Love is no longer merely memory or regret, but an ethical question of writing itself: how to end.

Moreover, by constructing an implicit emotional spectrum through exclamation marks, ellipses, and parentheses, Xia responds to the original poem’s tenderness and dreamlike quality, while ultimately proposing a more inward, poetic thesis at the conclusion:

“Truly gentle poetry
is not about finishing what is said,
but about knowing where to stop.”

This ending not only completes a respectful homage to the prior text, but also establishes a mature, reflective poetics imbued with theoretical awareness. Her response transcends imitation; through dialogue, it articulates her own voice and a restrained aesthetic of composure and ethical sensitivity.