Chapter Four: Imagery in Modern Poetry

Section One: Theoretical Foundations of Imagery in Modern Poetry

“Imagery” (image) is one of the principal constituent elements of modern poetry and is also the object to which “musicality” is attached.
In poetic literary works, it signifies the expression of people’s intellectual and emotional experiences through concrete forms or visual scenes; these “concrete forms or visual scenes” are what are called images.
Imagery in poetry may be used to represent objects, actions, emotions, thoughts, and psychological states.

I. Theories of Imagery in the Chinese Tradition

Among the Han people of the East, the earliest figure to introduce “imagery” into the field of literary theory was Liu Xie.
In The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons – “Spiritual Thought”, he wrote:

“The solitary illuminating craftsman peers into imagery and wields his chisel,”

employing a figurative metaphor of artistic craftsmanship to illustrate that the creator composes by relying on imagined forms, and further pointing out that the use of imagery is “the foremost technique in governing literary expression.”

1. The Theory of the Fusion of Imagery and Scene

Among theories of imagery, the “theory of imagery and scene” (also known as the “theory of the fusion of emotion and scene”) offers the most comprehensive explanation of the concept of imagery.

“Emotion” and “principle,” together with “scene” and “object,” constitute the four primary objects of poetic expression.
“Emotion and principle” belong to subjective psychological activity, while “scene and object” belong to the objective physical world.
The two are mutually interior and exterior, complementing each other.

The proponent of this view was the Ming dynasty thinker Wang Fuzhi.
In Ginger Studio Talks on Poetry, he wrote:

“Scenes merge with emotion; emotion arises from scenes. From the beginning they are never separate, but follow wherever intention leads.”

and further:

“Emotion is born within the scene, and the scene is contained within emotion. Therefore it is said: the scene is the scene of emotion, and emotion is the emotion of the scene.”

He also stated:

“Though emotion and scene are named as two, in reality they cannot be separated. What is marvelous in poetry lies in their boundless fusion.”

These remarks point out the mutually generating and interpenetrating relationship between emotion and scene.
Whether “emotion arises from encountering a scene” or “emotion is lodged within a scene,” the poet must harmonize the two.

In handling imagery, one must firmly grasp the principle of “emotion as the intangible and scene as the tangible, with the intangible and tangible mutually veiling each other,” allowing subject and object, emotion and scene, to merge into unity and thereby achieve a realm in which meaning transcends the image.

Similar ideas also appear in Zhu Tingzhen’s Xiaoyuan Talks on Poetry:

“When writing scenes, sometimes emotion lies within the scene, sometimes beyond it; when writing emotion, sometimes scenes are within emotion, sometimes scenes arise from emotion. There has never been a scene without emotion, nor emotion without scene.
Sometimes emotion need not be spoken and yet grows deeper; sometimes scenes need not be written and yet fully appear—mutually generating, mutually blending, forming an integrated whole.
Emotion is precisely the scene, and the scene precisely the emotion—like flowers in a mirror and the moon in water, empty yet luminous, overlapping in clarity, vivid and exquisite.”

and:

“The fusion of emotion and scene means emotion within scene and scene within emotion, fused into one inseparable whole.”

Modern poet Bai Ling (Zhuang Zuhuang) expressed a similar idea:

“Meaning is emotion; image is scene—either lodging emotion within scene, arousing emotion through scene, or blending the two.”

This view is thus in harmony with Wang Fuzhi’s position.

2. The Theory of Artistic Realm

The contemporary aesthetician Zhu Guangqian extended the relationship between emotion and scene into what he called the “theory of artistic realm”:

“What the ancients referred to as ‘emotion arising from scene and scene arising from emotion,’ where emotion and scene mutually generate and perfectly correspond—emotion fitting the scene and the scene conveying emotion—this is precisely the poetic realm.
Every poetic realm must contain two elements: ‘feeling’ and ‘imagery.’ ‘Feeling,’ in short, is emotion; ‘imagery’ is scene.”

Zhu further stated:

“Poetry takes feeling as its core; feeling manifests in sound and is lodged in imagery.”

The author refers to this as the “theory of imagery and feeling.”

3. The Theory of the Reproduction of Impression

How do modern poets themselves view imagery?
Tan Zihao wrote in On Modern Poetry:

“Imagery is the reproduction of impressions after they have been refined by the poet’s response to things.
This reproduced impression is a creation filtered through the poet’s thought and emotion; it is no longer the raw impression initially received, but has become perceptible imagination.
Thus the poetic realm of imagination is not the actual realm of reality, yet it possesses artistic truth.”

This statement points out that imagery is a creative “reproduction of impression,” in which the reproduced image becomes perceptible imagination.
The author terms this the “theory of impression reproduction.”

4. The Theory of Imagery Restoration

Poet Yu Guangzhong wrote in On Imagery:

“Imagery is one of the fundamental artistic conditions that constitute poetry. It is difficult to imagine a poem without imagery, just as it is difficult to imagine a poem without rhythm.
Imagery refers to the external form of the poet’s internal meaning; the reader then attempts, based on this external form, to restore the poet’s original internal intention.”

This points out that imagery serves as a shared bridge between the poet’s creation of the poetic text and the reader’s reception of the poem.
From the reader’s perspective, through interpreting the imagery between the poet’s lines, one ‘retraces backward’ to the author’s original meaning.
The author calls this the “theory of imagery restoration.”

5. The Theory of Imagery Combination

Poet Chen Yizhi stated:

“Imagery is formed by the combination of the subjective intention of the mind and the objective external phenomenon.
Subjective intention is internal, hidden, and elusive; objective phenomena are visible, audible, and tangible.”

Meaning is internal and subjective and must be combined with external objective phenomena.
The author terms this the “theory of imagery combination.”

6. The Theory of Figurative Thinking

Poet Jian Zhengzhen stated:

“Forms are transformed into imagery through consciousness.
Poetry is the projection of the poet’s consciousness onto the objective world.
Imagery is the poet’s interpretation of objects through language—it is the poet’s thinking.
…Imagistic thinking is an essential element of poetry’s existence.
Therefore, serious poets not only require imagery to organically unify the entire poem, but also strive for each line to express poetic interest through imagistic thinking.”

This view holds that imagery is the poet’s expression of inner emotion and principle through concrete external scenes—namely, the visualization of abstract thought.
In the process of visualization, the poet must harmonize abstract emotional thinking with concrete imagistic forms.
The author calls this the “theory of figurative thinking.”

II. Theories of Imagery in the Western Tradition

1. The Theory of Imagery and Feeling

The aesthetician Benedetto Croce (1866–1952) believed:

“Poetry is the expression of imagery, while prose is the expression of judgment and concepts.”

He further stated:

“Art places a feeling within an image; neither feeling without image nor image without feeling can exist independently.”

This theory points out the difference in expressive form between poetry and prose:
poetry takes imagery as the primary component and mode of language, while prose centers on narration and rational exposition.

It also emphasizes the relationship of emotional attachment between imagery and feeling—an “adornment” or “lodging” relationship—distinct from the fusion relationship described in the following theory.

2. The Theory of the Complex

Imagist poet Ezra Pound (1885–1973) stated:

“An image is that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time.
…It is the sudden presentation of such a ‘complex’ that gives a sense of sudden liberation, of freedom from time and space, a sense of sudden growth such as we experience in the presence of the greatest works of art.”

The fusion of the “complex” emphasizes the instantaneous moment of producing imagery—akin to what is called inspiration—and the free associations that penetrate time and space once inspiration is triggered.

3. The Theory of the Objective Correlative

British poet T. S. Eliot (1888–1965) wrote in Hamlet and His Problems:

“The only way of expressing emotion in the form of art is by finding an ‘objective correlative’; in other words, a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of that particular emotion.
When these external facts, which terminate in sensory experience, are given, the emotion is immediately evoked.”

Artists express emotion through concrete correlatives.
In the plastic arts dominated by tangible forms, this theory is readily applicable.

However, in poetry, the poet’s process of selecting such “objective correlatives” has already undergone subjective aesthetic filtration and choice.
The author therefore argues that the term “subjective concrete correlative” would be more appropriate.

4. The Theory of Emotional Expression

The American poet C. D. Lewis discussed the function of imagery in actual poetic creation:

“An image is a picture made out of words by the poet’s imagination, designed to appeal to the reader’s imagination.
It is not used merely to record or reflect the objects the poet notices.
The poet sees things and records them as colored by his emotions and by the overall atmosphere of the poem—this is the task of imagery.”

Poet Chen Qianwu further explained:

“For the poet, an image must express the emotion required by the poem being written and fulfill the task of reinforcing the theme, while also connecting with other images within the poem.
Only in this way can images awaken poetic emotion within us.”

Imagery, therefore, is a verbal picture shaped by the poet’s imagination—
and such “pictures in language” become concrete and emotionally charged within the reader’s mind.

III. Semiotic Imagery

In the West, within modern linguistics (semiotics), imagery is expressed through “language codes.”
A code itself consists of a signifier (the signifying form or sign vehicle) and the signified (the concept or meaning to which it refers).

Roland Barthes (1915–1980) defined the first level of signification formed through combination as “form,” and the second level of meaning as “concept.”
The whole produced by the union of form and concept was termed by Barthes “signification,” and what this process ultimately produces is “myth.”

If we enlarge the framework of imagery, and observe it from the elevated perspective of culture and literature, then physical image and connotation become two crucial components of imagery.

Among them, the physical image belongs to sensory experience; it may be a concrete object perceived by one or several senses.
It serves as the carrier of informational meaning and constitutes the objective component in the formation of cultural imagery.

Connotation, on the other hand, is usually an abstract thought or emotion.
It is the extended meaning derived from the physical image within a specific literary context or even within the entire cultural environment, and forms the subjective expressive component of cultural imagery.

The function of imagery lies precisely in expressing the abstract through the concrete, and illuminating the unknown or the difficult to know through what is already known or easily recognized, within varying contexts.

Section Two: Imagery and Sensory Function

Poetic imagery consists of concrete forms that include tangible and intangible phenomena perceived by the five senses—sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch—such as birdsong, floral fragrance, bitterness and sweetness, cold and heat.
These elements perform within poetic lines, transmitting the poet’s intentions and emotional logic.

The range of imagery in modern poetry is even broader: anything perceived by the senses, regardless of time or place, may enter poetic lines for dramatic presentation, without limitation.

Before writing a poem, poets generally pass through two stages: the stage of stimulation and the stage of incubation.

In the stimulation stage, changes in external phenomena trigger the poet’s five sensory responses; these sensory responses stir the poet’s inner emotions, forming certain inner stirrings of feeling.
This is followed by the incubation stage, in which the poet amplifies these emotions and, according to their differing qualities, searches—through various forms of association—for concrete images and abstract expressions capable of embodying or conveying those feelings.

In psychology, the elementary form of association is simple association, which includes:

• contiguity association
• similarity association
• contrast association
• causal (relational) association
• sensory association

The more advanced form is complex association (ideation), which includes reproductive imagination and creative imagination.

I. Association: Simple Association

Simple association, as a broad form of imagination, is guided by immediately perceived objects.
It operates upon the representations produced during direct perception and remains inseparable from specific life experiences in particular times and places.

Its primary characteristic is experiential universality.

In other words, simple association is a psychological process whereby, based on existing aesthetic experience and through generalization, old experiences are used to evoke and integrate new experiences.
It does not transcend the limitations of prior experience.

The author lists the following five types of association in order to facilitate immediate understanding of their theoretical foundations and corresponding rhetorical devices.

Type of Association: Similarity Association

Theoretical basis:
Psychology — generalization
Aesthetics — the law of similarity, whereby associations are formed according to similarities or resemblances in nature, condition, or content among things.

Definition:
When the perception or recollection of one object evokes another object that is similar or close to it in nature, this is called similarity association.
Based on some resemblance in quality or appearance between two objects, the creator or speaker seizes upon the point of similarity and uses one to analogize the other—speaking of one while referring to the other.

Examples:
From chrysanthemums one thinks of Tao Yuanming returning to seclusion in the Southern Mountains;
from plum blossoms one recalls Lin Bu’s “faint fragrance and sparse shadows”;
from a young girl’s rosy cheeks one thinks of a red apple.

Corresponding rhetorical devices:

1. Metaphor:
   Most metaphors rely on similarity association—for example, likening “autumn wind and autumn rain” to revolutionary circumstances, or using “pine and cypress enduring the coldest years” to describe firm will and noble integrity.
2. Symbolism:
   Symbolism employs concrete imagery to express abstract ideas and emotions.
   The relationship between the concrete image and the abstract meaning may arise from rational linkage, social convention, or ingenious creative invention.

Type of Association: Contiguity Association

Theoretical basis:
Aesthetics — the law of contiguity, whereby associations are formed based on proximity in time or space.

Definition:
Things that are close in time or space easily become linked in experience, making it easy for one to evoke the other.
Because two objects frequently appear together, a stable conditioned response is formed: sensing one immediately brings the other to mind and triggers corresponding emotions.

Examples:
Mentioning mountain railways readily evokes Alishan;
speaking of Chijiawan Stream brings to mind the Formosan landlocked salmon—due to spatial proximity.
Mentioning the Yellow Plum season evokes the rainy season;
seeing cherry blossoms in full bloom evokes lingering spring chill—due to temporal proximity.

Corresponding rhetorical devices:

1. Hypotyposis (vivid presentation /示現):
   An expressive method based on temporal and spatial shifts, whose main function is to bring what is absent before the eyes.
   When employed, readers seem to witness scenes from another time and space unfolding before them.
   In short, it is an associative movement of time–space traversal and virtual reality.
2. Metonymy:
   Metonymy is grounded in contiguity association.
   The substituting term and the substituted term bear no similarity but are connected through adjacency.

From a psychological perspective—whether part and whole, specific and general, species and genus, concrete and abstract, cause and effect, container and contained, or tool and user—each pair shares a relational linkage that produces a sense of proximity, thereby triggering associative thinking.

Type of Association: Contrast Association

Theoretical basis:
Aesthetics — the law of contrast, whereby association is formed through opposing qualities or appearances, reinforcing the perception of their oppositional relationship.

Definition:
When perception or memory of one object evokes another object with opposite characteristics, this is called contrast association.
It reflects both commonality and opposition: only where commonality exists can opposition be perceived.

Contrast association facilitates recognition of opposites and plays a vital role in understanding and analysis.

Examples:
Darkness and light both involve brightness, but one is dim while the other is intense;
summer and winter are both seasons, but one is hot and the other cold.

Corresponding rhetorical devices:

1. Juxtaposition (contrastive highlighting /映襯):
   Placing opposing ideas or things side by side to reveal their differences or relations.
2. Parallelism (antithesis /對偶):
   A more formally balanced contrast using equal or similar sentence structures to express opposing or related meanings.

Type of Association: Causal (Relational) Association

Theoretical basis:
Semantics —
(1) the law of causality: relationships in which specific causes produce definite effects;
(2) the law of relations: connections formed through other types of relationships.

Definition:
Relational association includes part–whole and genus–species relations, such as thinking of a fountain pen when recalling stationery, or vice versa.
Causal association involves cause-and-effect relations, such as thinking of pine and cypress enduring the coldest season, or warmth when seeing a fire.

Examples:
Based on relational adjacency:
“From snow one thinks of recluses; from flowers of beauties; from wine of knights-errant; from the moon of close friends; from landscapes of inspired poetry.”
(Zhang Chao, Dreams in Shadow)

Corresponding rhetorical devices:

1. Metonymy:
   Relational association overlaps with contiguity association, both rooted in psychological proximity based on experience and memory.
2. Enumerative imagery (列錦):
   Arranging multiple nouns or noun phrases in sequence to form a sentence, with continuity arising from spatial adjacency—such as:

“Withered vines, old trees, dusk crows;
small bridges, flowing water, cottages;
ancient roads, west wind, gaunt horses.”
(Ma Zhiyuan, Autumn Thoughts)

Type of Association: Sensory Association

Theoretical basis:
Psychology — imitation
Aesthetics — empathy (affective transference)

Definition:
Refers to sensory reactions to external stimuli, typically expressed through imitation or vivid depiction.
When sensory domains shift and interact—each sense borrowing the function of another—synesthesia occurs: an image originally perceived by one sense is expressed through another.

Examples:

1. Imitative description (摹寫):
   “Before Mount Xisai white egrets fly,
   peach blossoms flow as mandarin fish grow fat…”
   (Zhang Zhihe, Fisherman’s Song)
2. Synesthesia:
   “He took the cicada sounds recorded on the opposite hill this year
   and let the children warm themselves by them.”
   (Guan Guan, Cicadas)

Corresponding rhetorical devices:

1. Imitative depiction:
   Using language to vividly render colors, sounds, shapes, scenes, and states of real-world phenomena.
2. Synesthesia:
   Transferring sensations from one sensory domain to another, allowing senses to interpenetrate.

In structural linguistics, similarity association and contiguity association are the two most fundamental modes of aesthetic imagination.

The Russian linguist Roman Jakobson, in his 1962 essay “Two Aspects of Language and Two Types of Aphasic Disturbances,” pointed out that:

• the components of the syntagmatic axis—the linear sequence of elements in speech or writing—are characterized by contiguity,
• while the components of the paradigmatic axis—the set of substitutable elements in the background—are characterized by similarity.

Jakobson further observed:

“Contiguity admits only one possibility, whereas similarity can exist in various respects; therefore, a single element may belong to a series of paradigmatic sets.”

He went on to state:

These two characteristics correspond precisely to the two principal types of figurative language:

• Metaphor is based on similarity (similarity association), substituting one thing for another due to resemblance—such as likening flowers to young women.
• Metonymy is based on contiguity (contiguity association), substituting through adjacency—such as using skirts or braids to refer to young women.

Jakobson’s Theory of the Two Poles of Metaphor and Metonymy

In another essay, “The Two Poles of Metaphor and Metonymy,” Jakobson argued that these two modes of association constitute the two poles of all human symbolic activity.

From a linguistic perspective, they correspond precisely to the two poles of metaphor and metonymy, whose internal governing principles are the law of similarity and the law of contiguity.

Metaphor operates through concealment (implicit substitution), whereas metonymy operates through replacement (substitution by adjacency);
the former primarily performs a descriptive function, while the latter chiefly performs a referential function.

From the standpoint of literary history, these two poles give rise to representation and expression, that is, the two major stylistic tendencies of Realism and Romanticism.

Drawing on the concise schematic presented in Modern Aesthetic Systems edited by Ye Lang (p. 177), the author reorganizes Jakobson’s dichotomy of the syntagmatic axis (axis of combination) and the paradigmatic axis (axis of selection) as follows:

Syntagmatic axis (combination axis)
→ contiguity (contiguity association)
→ law of contiguity
→ metonymy
→ expression
→ Romanticism

Paradigmatic axis (selection axis)
→ similarity (similarity association)
→ law of similarity
→ metaphor
→ representation
→ Realism

II. Ideation: Complex Association

When the problems people face cannot be directly solved through prior experience, knowledge, theories, or methods by means of generalization, independent thinking becomes necessary.

This involves reanalyzing and recombining various kinds of stored information in the mind to form new connections in order to meet specific needs; this process is known as creative thinking.

Creative imagination is the expressive form of creative thinking.
By nature, it belongs to divergent thinking, lateral thinking, and non-logical thinking.

That is, without relying on immediate perception or stored memory images, it can generate new forms through analysis and synthesis, thereby transcending experiential limitations and producing novel modes of image-based thought.

Generally speaking, in the process of aesthetic appreciation, reproductive imagination predominates;
in the process of aesthetic creation, creative imagination takes precedence.

(1) Reproductive Imagination

Definition:

“People are capable of forming new images in their consciousness based on others’ descriptive representations—whether conveyed through language or other material means.

Many images never personally seen or heard can, through others’ descriptions, appear vividly before us and become objects of aesthetic experience, greatly expanding our aesthetic horizon.”

In other words, reproductive imagination refers to the transformation and renewal of others’ provided imagery through interpretive and emotional imaginative activity, producing fresh and moving new images.

Explanation:

Within rhetorical devices, parody (仿擬) and burlesque parody (仿諷) exemplify the application of others’ imagery or established discourse frameworks for creative transformation.

Parody, broadly defined, refers to deliberately imitating existing words, phrases, sentences, or texts in order to attract attention or create humor or satire, while producing new content within the borrowed form.
This broad definition includes burlesque parody.

Burlesque, in particular, imitates the syntax and tone of existing works with high fidelity while creating comic or satirical effects, often targeting social phenomena.
It may also be termed mocking imitation, generating humor through the incongruity between form and content.

From a psychological perspective of imitation and identification, parody may be understood as a fusion of formal linguistic imitation with an underlying subversive intent (non-identification).

As scholar Tan Yongxiang aptly described it:
“the imitated form and the original are alike yet different—identical yet not identical.”

(2) Creative Imagination

Definition:

“Creative imagination refers to the psychological activity whereby individuals independently synthesize stored mental representations to create novel, unique, and extraordinary images, without relying on others’ descriptions.”

In creative imagination, the creator employs imaginative power to construct a clear mental image of what he or she seeks to realize, focusing attention upon this idea or vision and investing it with affirmative energy until it eventually becomes objective reality.

Explanation:

Among rhetorical devices, symbolism and hyperbole are典型 manifestations of creative imagination.

• Symbolism arises through suggestive free association operating within the subconscious.
• Hyperbole emerges as partial deformation—expansion or contraction—of imagined objects as they pass through the subconscious mirror during free association.

The psychological foundation of hyperbole lies in curiosity mentality, rooted in stimulus differentiation;
its aesthetic foundation lies in the absurdity and grotesque quality of novelty.

Scholar Huang Qingxuan defines hyperbole as:

“The exaggeration and ornamental amplification of language beyond objective fact, making the expressed image more prominent and emotion more vivid, thereby deepening the reader’s or listener’s impression.”

Here:

• “exaggeration beyond objective fact” constitutes the form of hyperbole;
• “making the image more prominent and emotion more vivid” constitutes its effect;
• “deepening the audience’s impression” constitutes its purpose.

Professor Huang further points out that the subjective factor of hyperbole is the author’s desire to astonish, while the objective factor is the reader’s curiosity.

III. Practical Application of Various Types of Association

Begin by grasping a single concept or emotion, extending it from a point into a line (the main axis), and then gradually expanding it into a plane (contextual network).

Through associative exercises, identify related and usable imagery—starting with concrete images, classifying and listing them systematically.

(1) Contiguity Association

When the perception or recollection of one object evokes another object closely related in nature, this is called contiguity association.

Example:

“Spring river tides rise to meet the sea;
over the sea the bright moon rises with the tide.
Its shimmering light flows for thousands of miles—
where along the spring river is the moon not shining?”

Spring river → tides → sea → bright moon — interconnected both near and far.

Topic: Alishan

What concrete images related or adjacent come to mind?

People: Tsou tribe, tourists, hunters, poachers
Culture: festivals (war festival, millet festival), fish species, Kuba ceremonial house, myths
Specialties: coffee, tea, regional cuisine
Scenery: forests, railways, vegetation zones, sea of clouds, sunrise, cherry blossoms, Danayigu Valley, suspension bridges, guesthouses

Exercise:
Use these imagery sets to write a short poem of about twenty lines:

1. First conceive a basic story framework
2. Use it to organize scenes
3. Select appropriate imagery
4. Develop scenes along narrative progression

You may write object-centered lyric poetry, landscape lyricism, or a narrative poem.

(2) Similarity Association

Association arising from similarity in external features or qualities—for example:
“Mountains are frozen waves” (Zheng Chouyu, Letters Beyond the Mountains).

Topic: First Love

Possible similar imagery:

Qualities: honey lemon tea (sweet and sour), balloons (emotional rise and fall), trains (passing stations, hesitation to board), windows letting sunlight in, flying kites, holding a skylark

Traits: anticipation mixed with fear of hurt, possessiveness (“not a grain of sand in the eyes”)

Exercise: Write a ten-line poem using similarity association.

(3) Contrast Association

Association through opposites, also called reverse association:

Desert vs. forest; beauty vs. beast; city vs. countryside; God vs. Satan; reason vs. emotion; day vs. night; ice (coldness) vs. fire (passion); perfection vs. imperfection.

Topics:

1. Beauty and the Beast
2. Wife and Mistress

Choose one and write a ten-line poem.

(4) Causal (Relational) Association

Association based on cause-and-effect relationships—bidirectional between cause and result.

Example from Yu Guangzhong:

“The so-called wife
was once a bride
the so-called bride
was once a girlfriend
the so-called girlfriend
was once shy”

Topic: Countryside

People: farmers, village girls, elderly, children
Scenery: haystacks, scarecrows, fields, ponds, irrigation canals
Animals & plants: crops, vegetables, dogs, cattle, pigs, chickens, ducks, geese
Tools: ox carts, plows, straw hats, rain capes, straw sandals

Write a ten-line poem using these images.

(5) Sensory Association

Integrate all five senses to observe, experience, and vividly depict forms and qualities.

Visual: caterpillars, tattoos, stinging nettles, sea urchins, wild dogs, mushrooms
Auditory: birdsong, insects, valley echoes, wind and rain, singing, bells
Olfactory: floral scent, sweat odor, moldiness, fishy smells
Gustatory: bitterness, sweetness, sourness, freshness, burnt flavor
Tactile: coldness, warmth, prickling, smoothness

Exercise: Write a ten-line poem using sensory imagery.

(6) Reproductive Imagination

Reproductive imagination creates texts (sentences) that resemble the original text through imitation and parody, yet remain inventive and original.

Example sentences:
“Keep your butt and you won’t fear running out of gas.”
“Spring sleep knows no dawn, dream talk grows like fur;
night comes with cats crying—how much sleep is left to count?”

Example parody based on Li Yu of the Southern Tang Dynasty, ‘Yu Meiren’:

When will the sparrows’ battle in Fangcheng ever end?
The chips are gradually running low.
Just now I casually drew another wind tile,
the player upstream looks like a suspicious physician.

One-four-seven ten-thousands still seem to be there,
only they cannot be drawn out.
I ask you—how many chips remain?
All I see is my salary continually flowing away.

(7) Creative Imagination

Creative imagination is also known as horizontal leap thinking, which stands in direct contrast to vertical logical (causal) thinking.

Unlike metonymic or contiguity-based thinking, it more closely resembles the surrealist technique of automatic syntax, though it is not entirely free from rational control.

Example:

When I Don’t Want to Sleep ∕ Qiu Huan

One must not lie
write wrong characters
restrain love.

Deliberately desert-like calmness, occasionally smiling
no need to deliberately fold the quilt after rising
shake open dreams
dazed through an entire winter

surely realize that a bad life is better than a good death
then
eat a plate of fried rice
purify the body

Matching Game ∕ Xia Yu

Envelope — thumbtack
Freedom — magnet
Sidewalk — fifth floor
Flashlight — drum
Method — laughter
Lead type — □ □
Write — innocence
Royal blue — dig

Section Three: Imagery and the Use of Cinematic Techniques

The “image” within poetic imagery encompasses external objects perceptible through the five senses.
Poets possess finer powers of observation and heightened sensitivity compared with ordinary people.

Among the five sensory modes, vision most often plays the dominant role in receiving information.

Both classical and modern poetry largely depict what is seen, and what readers receive are successive visual scenes unfolding like frames of a film.

Example — Bai Pu, Tianjingsha (Autumn):

Lonely village, setting sun, lingering clouds.
Thin smoke, old trees, cold crows.
A single distant wild goose descends.
Green mountains, clear waters.
White grasses, red leaves, yellow flowers.

Each line of this lyric is a landscape depiction.
Objects and scenery are arranged in the rhetorical form of enumerative listing, which together compose a rural autumn painting.

The poet uses his eyes as a camera lens, scanning each image from distance to proximity and back again:

• a long shot: “lonely village, setting sun, lingering clouds”
• a medium shot: “thin smoke, old trees, cold crows”
• a close-up focus: “a single descending wild goose”
• then a pulled-back wide shot: “green mountains, clear waters; white grasses, red leaves, yellow flowers”

Though Bai Pu knew nothing of cinematic theory, he instinctively organized visual imagery by spatial distance and montage arrangement.

Visual Collage in Modern Poetry

Modern poets similarly employ extensive visual imagery—especially within modernist collage art, which centers on visual fragments.

Consider postmodern poet Xia Yu’s All Those Who Have Loved Sit There Singing Loudly:

(complete poem preserved)

Within the lines:

“Suitable for funerals; gloomy. [steamships, trains]
chimneys. farther, more. coarse willow cotton cloth;
exaggerated words. Greek crosses, swastikas.”

These concrete visual images—funerals, vehicles, chimneys, fabric, symbols—are collaged into three distinct categories across lines.

Every line except the closing one appeals primarily to vision, producing multiple visual frames.
The effect resembles guiding the reader through a sequence of cinematic scenes.

As for the poet’s intended emotions or philosophical meanings, the poem offers few direct semantic clues—its power lies in visual montage rather than explicit exposition.

Horizontal Image Leaps Through Camera Movement

Beyond collage, poets also employ alternating long and short shots, shifting focal points to create horizontal leaps of imagery, as in Hong Hong’s New Life:

New Life ∕ Hong Hong

On the shelf are three apples
they let me see the ocean
I ride into town bringing back fresh bread
passing through morning seaweed with schools of fish

Last night’s poetry book is like you asleep
spread open at a full and perfect page
needing no additional line
so I put down my pen too
listening to the tide rising inch by inch
inside my heart and the papaya tree in the backyard

In the first stanza, visual imagery leaps fluidly between land and sea:

“apples” → “ocean” → “town”
“bread” → “schools of fish” → “seaweed”

This continual visual movement maintains a dynamic and flowing aesthetic rhythm.

Section Four: The Fallacy of “Non-Imagistic Poetry”

In the late Qing dynasty, Zhu Tingzhen stated in Xiaoyuan Shihua:

“When one writes of scenery, either emotion resides within the scene, or emotion exists beyond the scene; when one writes of emotion, either scenery is contained within emotion, or scenery arises from emotion. There has never been scenery without emotion, nor emotion without scenery …”

In modern times, Yu Guangzhong likewise pointed out in his essay On Imagery:

“Imagery is one of the fundamental artistic conditions that constitute poetry. It is difficult for us to imagine a poem without imagery, just as it is difficult to imagine a poem without rhythm. Whether among the ancients or the moderns, all regard ‘poetry without imagery’ as a false proposition.”

Su Shaolian, however, deliberately foregrounded the notion of “non-imagistic poetry.” On the one hand, he asserted:

“Poetry grows and becomes powerful through imagery,”

yet on the other hand he contradicted himself by claiming:

“Non-imagistic poetry must not contain visual forms, but it may include phenomena of other sensory modalities.”

In other words, what he calls “non-imagistic poetry” merely excludes visual imagery, while still retaining imagery of other sensory systems.

Let us examine the two poetic examples cited by Su Shaolian.

Hibernation ∕ Xia Yu

I merely wish to store up enough love,
enough tenderness and cunning,
just in case—
I wake up and meet you.

I merely wish to store up enough pride,
enough loneliness and coldness,
just in case—

Within the poem appear the personal subjects “I” and “you,” and the dynamic verbs “store up” and “wake up.”
The former involves concrete (perceptible) human figures, while the latter functions as action cues that guide visual perception.
All of these remain inseparable from visual operation.

Pendulum ∕ Bai Ling

Drip to the left, tap to the right—how narrow is this angle of time.
To swim in is life; to swim out is death.
Drip—love has only reached dawn; tap—desire has already reached dusk.
Drip is the past; tap is the future.
Through the cracks of drip-tap countless presents pass through.

Su writes:

“This is a standard non-imagistic poem. The poem consists entirely of sensory phenomena—nothing but phenomena.
Auditory sensations include: drip, tap;
kinesthetic sensations include: left, right, swim in, swim out, pass through;
ideational sensations include: narrowness, time, angle, life, death, love, dawn, dusk, past, future, cracks.
The ‘angle’ is attached to the conceptual notion of ‘time’ and has no object upon which its form may be visually depicted.”

What the present author questions, however, is that “angle,” “crack,” “dusk,” and “dawn” are all visible and perceptible visual images capable of sensory discrimination.
“Swim in,” “swim out,” and “pass through” are likewise dynamic visual images that can be perceived.

Just as the word “flow” may refer to the movement of wind (air), of liquid (water), and even of light waves or time, how can one claim the absence of visual imagery here?

Yet Su forcibly twists imagery into the notion of mere “phenomena,” insisting that these “knowable and perceptible phenomena” are not bodily or formed objects and therefore cannot be called “imagery.”

Note:

Su Shaolian, On Non-Imagistic Poetry, original text available at:
http://blog.sina.com.tw/poem/article.php?entryid=626462