Section Three: Analysis of Modern Poems Employing Symbolic Techniques

I. Object-Chanting Symbolism

“Beast” ∕ Su Shaolian

On the dark green blackboard, I wrote the character “beast,” adding the phonetic notation “animal.” Turning around to face the entire class of elementary school students, I began to teach this character. After teaching the whole morning and exhausting all my efforts, they still did not understand; they simply kept staring at me. I was extremely distressed.

Behind me, the blackboard became a dark green jungle. The white chalk character “beast” crouched upon the board and roared at me. I picked up the eraser, intending to wipe it away, but it dashed into the jungle. I chased after it, running about in pursuit, until white chalk dust had fallen all over the lectern.

I burst out from within the blackboard and stood upon the platform. My clothes were torn by beastly claws; there were bloodstains beneath my fingernails; insect sounds rang in my ears. Lowering my head to look, I could not believe it—I had actually turned into a four-legged, fur-covered vertebrate. I roared, “This is the beast! This is the beast!” The elementary school students all cried in fright.

This poem, “Beast,” stages the absurd plot of “man alienated into beast” through a surrealist technique. The teacher on the platform, in order to enable the elementary school students to understand the character “beast,” actually “jumps in headfirst” and personally performs the farce of transforming into a beast, allowing the students, through the process of “man becoming beast,” to conduct a sensory and imagistic experience of the concept of “beast.”

The symbolic meaning (deep meaning) of this poem may be considered from two perspectives:
(1) Human beings gradually evolved from beasts that ate raw flesh and drank blood.
(2) Within human nature there still remains a trace of beastliness—those survival instincts of wild animals—which are difficult to suppress through moral or legal means. Thus, when a person loses emotional control or suffers a mental breakdown, primitive beastliness will manifest itself.

“Glove and Love” ∕ Du Ye

On the table lies quietly a black-type English word:
glove

I use it to resist the cold of living.
The pair of black leather gloves she placed on the table
covers the first letter,
just enough to let love be completely revealed:
love

There is no phonetic transcription;
we can only read it in silence.

She picks up the pair of gloves from the table,
letting love be concealed,
quietly placing them upon my cold hands,
allowing love to be completely hidden inside the gloves.

The two English words “glove” and “love” differ by only one letter, “g.” A glove is an accessory that protects the hands from cold. The author cleverly uses a pair of black leather gloves as the symbolic object to indirectly convey the simple and intimate concept of “love”: giving the other person “a feeling of warmth.” This feeling of warmth is the symbolic meaning of love.

The pair of gloves in this poem functions as the driving force of the plot. Through the effect of covering and uncovering when placed upon the table, it demonstrates that the word “glove” contains within it the substantive connotation of “love.” The author’s ingenious conception is indeed a highlight.

“Dog” ∕ Zheng Jiongming

I am not an honest dog,
for an honest dog does not bark.
On such a pitch-black night,
my master puts a muzzle on me
so that I cannot open my mouth to bark
and disturb everyone’s sweet dreams—
I understand his good intentions.
Yet I cannot help but bark.

As an awakened dog,
even if I cannot bark aloud,
I must bark—unceasingly bark—
bark within the deep valley of my heart,
bark from nightfall all the way to dawn.

I know, I am not an honest dog,
for an honest dog does not bark
on this pitch-black night.

This poem adopts the form of “personification in reverse” (depicting a person as a thing) and uses a narrative method of “speaking truth through reversal.” By reproaching himself as an dishonest dog, the poet expresses his own grievances and a stubborn will of “better to cry out and die than to live in silence.”

The poet first “imagines” (objectifies) himself as a “dog” and narrates from the first-person perspective of “I.” “I” am a dishonest dog because my master wants me not to bark or cry out, not to disturb others’ pleasant dreams. Yet I insist that “as an awakened dog,” I would “rather bark with a muzzle than remain silent and be an honest dog.” Naturally, I am not favored by my master.

The symbolic object “dog” (surface meaning) suggests a symbolic meaning (deep meaning) that older readers may immediately associate with the politically oppressive atmosphere of the White Terror period—how the master (the ruling authorities of the Nationalist government) suppressed and restrained the house dogs (the common people). Yet there were still those who would “rather bark with a muzzle than remain silent and be an honest dog”—preferring to bark and be silenced, even arrested and imprisoned, rather than become a silent and obedient dog.

This poem vividly and symbolically suggests that during the Martial Law period, the people on the island of Taiwan who were unwilling to relinquish freedom of speech resisted the ruling authorities of the Nationalist government, knowing it could not succeed yet acting nonetheless. It highlights the spirit of resistance and the pursuit of freedom and human rights in that era.

 

II. Symbolism in Character Poetry

“The Abandoned Wife” / Ya Hsien

A woman wounded by flowers
Spring is not her true enemy.
Her skirt can no longer form
a beautiful, dizzying circle.
The night of her hair
can no longer cause that lamp-less youth to lose his way.
The river of her era flows backward.

She is no longer this year’s woman of spring.
The pipa is picked up from that man’s hands,
and instantly shatters, falling into a stretch of desolation.
The thief of emotion escapes.
The magnetic field of the male is no longer north.

She is no longer
this year’s woman of spring.
She hates to hear her own blood
dripping upon that man’s name.
She hates prayer even more,
for Jesus, too, is male.

In Ya Hsien’s poetry collection Abyss, poems centered on characters account for approximately one third of the total. The figures that appear in Ya Hsien’s poetry are mostly minor people from the lower strata of society: sailors, abandoned wives, madwomen, singing girls, and so forth. The atmosphere of the entire poem reveals, amid humor, the resentment and sorrowful emotions of the abandoned wife. From the third-person narrative perspective, the plot is unfolded section by section; yet behind the story, the poet’s intention is humane and compassionate. The poet understands that our patriarchal society has never regarded “madwomen” and “abandoned wives” — these humble and vulnerable people — in a fair and positive light. The poet wishes readers, “within the sound of cold laughter, to reflect” upon how we ought to help these humble and disadvantaged people in society.

“Prisoner of War” / Li Min-yung

Lieutenant K has no homeland.
When he was captured,
he swore to cast it away.

On the day of his release,
he looked at the men sent from the homeland,
silently,
wanting to hand himself over to them.

Arms were prohibited.
Arms were not prohibited.
The homeland was gone.
The homeland still remained.

A double epistemology
was experimented upon Lieutenant K.
Perhaps one day
it will be your turn or mine.

The world is quietly wiping away tears.
The world is quietly shedding tears.

For Taiwanese soldiers who grew up in an era of dramatic upheaval, this poem fully reflects the changes and inner contradictions of “identity recognition.” From the main narrative thread, it may be inferred that the protagonist, Lieutenant K, was likely a Taiwanese youth dispatched overseas during the Japanese colonial period to carry out military missions. After he was captured, Japan was immediately defeated and surrendered, and according to treaty terms handed over the occupied territory of Taiwan. Thus his nationality became that of the Republic of China, and his homeland became China. At this moment, confusion and contradiction emerged in his “identity recognition”: his original homeland had been Japan; after Japan’s defeat, when he was released (repatriated), his status had become Chinese nationality, and China became his homeland thereafter. This was the lived experience and unique historical condition of that generation of Taiwanese people during World War II.

The “prisoner of war,” as the symbolic object, indirectly conveys precisely this psychological contradiction and bewilderment in identity recognition when faced with a “replacement of homeland” (symbolic meaning).

“Blood-Colored Cherry Blossoms” / Chen Ch’u-fei
—— In Memory of Mishima Yukio

The stab thrust into the lower abdomen severs tangled intestines of sorrow,
and also severs all beauty and grief.
Dark crimson blood flows steadily forth, flowing toward the row of scarlet cherry blossoms before the steps.
(I hear the flower fairies, seven parts drunk,
and pleasure-seekers from afar shouting as they play drinking games.)

At last, Mishima, you remove your mask
and face, in the dusk, the “Temple of the Golden Pavilion,” as incomprehensible as a “Zen gatha.”
You raise the sharp blade, dissecting without reservation your youthful flesh.
But death cannot and should not be rehearsed.
“Spring Snow,” sharp as a blade, slashes over and over again.
A delicate and exquisitely subtle palace love affair is destined to become
a tragedy that must be severed.

Yet when I hasten back from “The Sea of Fertility,”
Mishima, you have nailed yourself
upon the thorns of a rose, as though in legend
that blue bird had renounced the loves of the mortal world.
A supremely desolate and beautiful elegy turns out to be merely
for every wall and mountainside, without prior arrangement,
to hurl forth an echo that will endure through eternity.

Amid the fallen crimson scattered across the ground, every petal
is filled with blood-color. After “Confessions of a Mask,”
how much can still remain in the blood vessels
of the red blood cells that never had time to flee?
Those notes, heroic and tragic,
that solidified before they could cry out,
solidified in the wind —
what kind of brilliant sparks
must they strike from your soul
to ignite, in the deep valleys of human hearts,
the withered branches and yellow leaves of fame and profit
that have accumulated for years?

In this poem, the author employs the concrete image of “blood-colored cherry blossoms” (symbolic object) to delineate the rapidly declining “Bushido spirit” (symbolic meaning) of post–World War II Japanese society under American occupation. The tragic figure of the novelist Mishima Yukio is precisely the incarnation of the “blood-colored cherry blossom”: at the moment when the cherry blossom blooms in its most resplendent brilliance, he resolutely ended his uncompromising life with tragic beauty.

“Of all things through the ages, only death is the most difficult.” Mishima Yukio’s act of drawing the blade and committing suicide manifested the most heroic spirit of martyrdom within Bushido. In the poetic text, the author embeds several of Mishima’s famous novels into the narrative, interpreting his brief yet dazzling life — as resplendent and radiant as the “blood-colored cherry blossoms” themselves.

 

III. Symbolism of Things

“Out of Thin Air” / Chen Li

A spider — I think of
occupying several branches,
spitting poetry —
transparent lines and sentences warp and weft an empire,
a complete sky.
After the rain, the wind blows.

In this poem, the author employs the pun “spitting poetry,” a phrase based on homophonic association, to describe that spider which occupies several branches and can “spit poetry,” thereby triggering the author’s association with the poet, who diligently “with transparent lines and sentences warp and weft an empire,” erecting a poetic (silken) utopian celestial net.

The spider and the spiderweb are concrete symbolic objects, alluding to the poet and the heavenly net woven by the act of spitting poetry (symbolic meaning).

“The San-Zhang-Li Firing Range” / Lo Fu

Just as I am about to write a poem about war,
the echoes from the San-Zhang-Li firing range
fall one by one upon my manuscript paper.

When there is no dish to go with the wine,
the bullets crackle and pop as they stir-fry for me
a plate of green peas.

Wait:
the blood of others —
how can I raise a toast?

“The echoes fall one by one upon the manuscript paper” represents a shift from the auditory to the visual sense — that is, a synesthetic technique of “transforming sound into form.” Between bullets and green peas, there exists not only a similarity in visual image, but also a similarity in sound; this constitutes a double “analogical association.”

The dense gunfire from the firing range during shooting practice causes the author, who is drinking and eating stir-fried green peas, to experience an illusion, as though he had once again returned to a battlefield thick with gunfire and strewn with the dead and wounded. Thus he hesitates and asks himself: “the blood of others — / how can I raise a toast?” — a line rich in ironic poignancy.

The symbolic objects in this poem include the firing range, bullets, and green peas — these concrete core images together construct the author’s memory of having experienced “brutal war,” reminding himself not to forget the “experience and lessons of war” (symbolic meaning).

“When the West Wind Passes” / Zheng Chouyu

Only thus passing by, the west wind ————
only blowing out my candle and then passing by.
Leaving in vain a volume not yet finished in my hand,
yet causing the dim darkness of the room to reflect the secluded blue outside the window.

When the fallen paulownia drifts like an echo from distant years, like a leaf lightly covered between the fingers,
when the melancholy of the evening scene congeals at the bottom of the eyes because the candlelight has been extinguished,
at this moment, I so naturally recall those youthful days.
Ah, those days — love’s passing was just like the passing of the west wind.

The “west wind” is the core image in the poem and at the same time the symbolic object, from which two layers of symbolic meaning are derived: youthful time and love that could not be retained in time.

The “paulownia leaf” drifting with the wind is like “an echo from distant years”; although it can be comprehended, there is no way to keep those early sounds and shadows.

This poem begins with emotion arising from a scene (the west wind blowing out the candle). At the time, the author was reading by candlelight; because the room suddenly became dim, and a paulownia leaf drifted past the window, the author was thereby prompted to recall his youthful years. Yet the more he recollects and reflects, the more deeply he sinks into the melancholy of life’s later years.

 

IV. Fable-style Poetry

“The Snail and the Oriole” / Chen Hongwen

Amen, in front of a grapevine,
Ah-nen, tenderly, the green land has just sprouted.
The snail, carrying that heavy shell,
step by step climbs upward.
On the tree above, two orioles,
Ah-xi, Ah-xi, laughing at it.
The grapes are still far from ripening,
why climb up now?
Ah yellow, Ah oriole, don’t laugh.
Wait until I climb up, then they will be ripe.

This children’s song probably appeared around the 1970s during the rise of campus folk songs. The narrative in the lyrics is lively and vivid: the protagonist is an honest and diligent snail, the antagonists are two flippant orioles, and the main setting is a grape trellis with a few trees around.

The opposing attitudes toward the “ripening grapes” are completely different: the orioles mock the snail for starting to climb too early, while the snail calmly responds that when it climbs up, the grapes will just be ripe, and it will enjoy them fully.

In this children’s song, featuring animals as main characters, the snail and orioles form a set of “contrasting symbolic objects,” symbolizing the idea that “those who work steadily and diligently can enjoy sweet rewards” (symbolic meaning). Its thematic implication is positive and wholesome.

“Sky Burial Poem” / Fei Ma

Panting,
they carry a nearly rotting
poetic body
up to the sky burial platform.
Before they can cut it with axe or knife,
it collapses and dismembers itself.

Smearing it with fragrant oil,
they throw those originally magnificent and resonant
fragments of words and characters high toward the sky,
letting the messengers of death guide it for transcendence.

Perched on nearby dead branches,
a group of vultures fold their wings tightly,
letting those things without flesh and blood whirl across the sky.
They respond only with indifference.

After being fooled a few times,
they have all learned to behave.

On the sky burial platform lies a “poetic body” (symbolic object 1). Through a pun, the poetic body and a corpse establish a cognitive phonetic association. Unable to wait for the sky burial masters to dismember it, the poetic body “collapses and dismembers itself,” creating a scene with “magical-realistic verisimilitude.”

The self-dismembering poetic body hints that the poem’s structure is seemingly loose, making the masters’ work easier. They smear fragrant oil and toss “those originally magnificent and resonant / fragments of words and characters” high into the sky, “letting the messengers of death guide it for transcendence.” The messengers of death (symbolic object 2) evoke the author’s association with pretentious, semi-competent literary critics (fortunately, I do not self-identify). These messengers ostentatiously guide and “transcend” these unreliable, floating images, exaggerating them, which is clearly ironic.

Meanwhile, the vultures perched on the dead branches, facing the whirlwind of “things without flesh and blood,” remain calm and detached, because they understand that these void “poetic bodies” lack soul and substance. Having been fooled a few times, they adopt an indifferent attitude. These vultures (symbolic object 3) represent readers who, after being repeatedly deceived, become discerning and composed.

This poem, through a sequence of continuous visual frames, exudes a satirical critique of the New Poetry world’s hypocrisy and superficiality — this constitutes the poem’s deep symbolic meaning. From a bystander’s perspective, the author mocks the prevalence of poor poetry and the pretentious critics, while the intelligent, detached readers (vultures) refuse to join in the chaos.

“I Met Snow White at the Fruit and Vegetable Market” / Luo Renling

That happened this morning. I met Snow White at the fruit and vegetable market; she looked
old and melancholy, and was busy bargaining with a green apple.
“But… didn’t you eat the poisoned apple…?”
Who said that? She twisted her bloated waist.
“When I was a child, the fairy tale books said so!” I answered loudly.
When I was a child? I stopped believing in fairy tales long ago.
She moved her thick, stubby fingers and continued bargaining with a peach.
“But… you were awakened by the prince… and then…” I still couldn’t accept it.
And then? You said prince?
He went to invest in stocks and lost thirty million.
“But… the books said that you lived happily ever after…” I stammered.
I said it already, that was just a fairy tale.
However… I did play the role of Snow White.
She carried the apple and the peach, as if she had fallen
into deep contemplation.

This poem, in nature, belongs to a type of meta-poem. The a priori text is the widely familiar fairy tale of “Snow White.” The poem’s interest lies in calmly applying the techniques of parodic imitation and subversion to an imagined “extended plot.” Through a dialogue form of questions and answers, it sequentially reveals Snow White and the prince’s reality—a marriage life full of mundane trivialities.

Snow White appears overweight, aged, and melancholy; she bargains with a fruit vendor in the bustling market over two pieces of fruit. The author, in the first-person perspective “I,” repeatedly questions the unexpectedly encountered Snow White and observes her immediate responses and behaviors. The princess’s words and actions indeed cause the author—originally enchanted by the romantic fairy tale—to repeatedly experience “incredible slip-ups and absurdities”:

1. She did not eat the poisoned apple given by the evil queen →
2. Her bloated body and aged, melancholy appearance clearly have nothing to do with the poisoned apple, but are the result of a life in difficulty, combined with indulgence in appetite →
3. Her life’s predicament stems from the prince’s stock market investment resulting in huge losses.

The ending is an even more unexpected, ironic twist: the princess bursts the author’s long-held imaginative bubble, saying that she did play the role of Snow White, but that was merely to entertain children; the fairy tale performed on stage does not reflect her real life, which she lives mundanely and with hardship.

This poem’s fable-like imagery is vivid: the symbolic object is Snow White, the setting is the bustling fruit and vegetable market, and the symbolic meaning (allegory) points directly to the idea that “the world of fairy tales is inherently fictional; it is a trick used by adults to soothe innocent children.” The implication is indeed harsh, yet it is a lesson everyone must confront in the process of growing up.

Notes:

1. Recorded from Cheng Weijun et al., eds., Xiuci Tongjian (Rhetoric Compendium), Taipei: Jianhong, 1998, p. 1092.
2. In evaluating Resurrection Grass, Lo Fu said: “Zhou Mengdie’s poetry not only deals with his personal emotional expression and philosophical attitude and method, but more importantly, it shows how a modern poet, through a sense of inner isolation, uses suggestion and symbolism to universalize (the greater self) the individual (the lesser self) tragic experience, and offers a serious critique of such suffering situations.”