Theoretical Principles of New Poetry Criticism and Appreciation

Chapter One: The Emergence of a Poem

A new poem, from its initial conception, through layout and organization, to revision and adjustment, generally undergoes these three procedures. For many beginners just entering the field, as well as writers with only a short history of composing poetry, creating new poems may seem like an exhausting and grueling task. Drawing upon forty years of my own creative experience, I have compiled this short essay to provide reference for friends who wish to cultivate their practice of new poetry.

Section One: Conception and Ideation

1. Inspiration is Not a Necessary Element

How does a new poem take shape in the brain? Some may bring up the concept of "inspiration." I do not deny that, at the very initial stage of conception, inspiration—this sudden flash—can have a motivating effect on the creator. In English, the word inspiration carries the nuance of "encouragement." My understanding of inspiration is that it is a kind of enlightening idea, which sometimes functions as a magical key that opens the door to a fantastical journey of imagination; sometimes it is a sudden spark that ignites the fuse of various associations. While inspiration can certainly trigger imaginative activity in the brain, it is not a universal panacea. If you can skillfully employ various kinds of associations, you will find that flexible application of associations is more effective and reliable than waiting for inspiration alone.

2. Determining the Theme

The main function of the theme is to provide the author with a focus during subsequent associative processes. The author radiates outward from this focus, using various associations to discover relevant imagery, and then proceeds with imagery selection and theme focusing. The former removes peripheral images that are loosely related to the theme or clearly add no value; the latter incorporates these filtered images into the paragraph layout, beginning the organic combination of images.

During the conception period of a new poem, the creator often has not yet decided on the theme. For example, on June 4, 1996, the day of the bloody suppression at Tiananmen, I watched many scenes of intertwined blood and tears on the television screen. Deeply shocked, I began to conceive and cultivate a poem to record this event. The poem’s title evolved from the earlier "Tiananmen" to the closing line, "Please come see the blood on the street," which eventually became the chosen theme. Interestingly, I later discovered by chance that this very line appeared at the end of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda's poem I Tell Some Things. This coincidence was a wonderful experience. In other words, even if you have already determined a theme, do not rush: you can still replace it during the subsequent drafting phase on paper.

Based on my creative experience, the emergence of a poem often follows this pattern:

1. A novel or moving scene triggers the motivation to write a poem
   In front of Taipei Station, a man missing a leg leans against a short wall with a crutch. He holds a guitar in his hands and a harmonica near his mouth. He is a self-reliant street performer. At his feet is a wooden box containing his personal music CDs. His little daughter sits quietly on a small stool, helping him collect payments from customers and hand over CDs. This scene deeply moved me, prompting me to write a very short story and, additionally, a new poem.
2. A memorable sentence or a thought-provoking saying
   "Some people you consider friends, but they see you as a stepping stone, stepping on you and forgetting you!" This sentence made me recall many past experiences and friends, inspiring me to write a new poem titled Some People.
3. Arriving at an unfamiliar city or countryside while traveling
   By "travel," my experience is: leaving your familiar hometown to visit someone else's familiar hometown.
   Facing a snowy landscape: in front of Kakunodate Station, Akita Prefecture, huge snow piles accumulate, snowflakes drift from the sky, and standing outdoors for just a short while, one can become a snowman. Besides taking photos, my mind also stirred faint waves of poetic thought. The desire to write poetry was gradually eroded by subsequent travel fatigue, yet this aesthetic experience had already been stored in my mind, waiting for the right moment to transform into a poem.

3. Beginning Various Associations

This is the conception stage, the primary psychological activity. You can perform simple associations based on the theme or your current emotions: associations such as similarity, contiguity, contrast, cause-and-effect, sensory, or you may directly challenge yourself with creative associations.

(1) Simple Associations

1. Association by Similarity
   Definition: Based on some kind of similarity in nature or appearance between two things, the creator or speaker grasps the similarities between them, using A to metaphorically represent B, pointing to one thing by another, or inferring one thing from another. “Association by similarity follows the law of similarity, that is, the association formed according to similarities or proximity between things in nature, state, content, and other aspects.”

Explanation: The perception or memory of one thing triggers thoughts of another thing that is similar or close in nature, called similarity (or analogous) association. For example, thinking of chrysanthemums may lead one to Tao Yuanming (Tao Qian), who resigned his official post and retired to Mount Nan, or thinking of plum blossoms may evoke Lin Bu's "subtle fragrance and sparse shadows." Similarity association reflects the resemblance and commonality among things. General metaphors rely on similarity associations, such as comparing "autumn wind and autumn rain" to revolutionary situations, or describing "pines and cypresses withstanding the cold" to express strong will and extraordinary moral integrity.

1. Association by Contiguity
   Definition: Things that are close in space or time are easily linked in experience, so one thing easily brings another to mind. “Association by contiguity follows the law of contiguity, that is, the association formed according to the proximity of things in time and space.”

Explanation: Because two things are quite close in time or space, the creator often links them together in relevant experience, forming a stable conditioned reflex: perceiving A immediately brings B to mind, triggering a corresponding emotional response. For example, mentioning a mountain railway easily evokes thoughts of Alishan; speaking of Qijiawan Creek brings to mind the cherry salmon, because the two are close in space. Mentioning Huangmei evokes the plum rain season, speaking of blooming cherry blossoms evokes spring chills—these are temporal proximities. Spatial and temporal proximities are also related: things close in space are often also close in time, and things close in time are often spatially near as well.

1. Contrast Association
   Definition: Triggered by perceiving or recalling something, it brings to mind another thing with opposite characteristics. Contrast association is based on the opposing nature or appearance of two things, primarily enhancing the understanding and perception of the oppositional relationship between them. In other words, contrast association refers to the ability to associate one thing with its opposite, highlighting distinctly opposing characteristics.

Explanation: For example, thinking of darkness may lead to light, thinking of winter may lead to summer, etc. Contrast association reflects both the commonality and the opposing individuality of things. There must be commonality to have opposing individuality. For instance, darkness and light share "brightness" (commonality), but the former is dim and the latter is bright. Summer and winter are both seasons, but one is hot and the other cold. Contrast association helps one readily see the opposite side of things and plays an important role in understanding and analyzing phenomena.

1. (Cause-and-Effect) Relational Association
   Definition: When thinking of a thing, one also recalls its meaning and its relation to other things, such as cause and effect, intension and extension, whole and part, or genus and species. Among these, cause-and-effect association is particularly important. Cause-and-effect association is the association based on objective causal relationships among things. This is a very common type of association.

Explanation: Associations formed from other kinds of connections between things can generally be called relational associations. For example, associations of part and whole, or species and genus: thinking of stationery may lead to a pen, or a pen may remind one of stationery. Cause-and-effect associations: thinking of enduring the cold may bring to mind "pines and cypresses withstand the cold," or a fire may evoke warmth. Connections among things are diverse, and relational associations reflecting these connections are also diverse.

1. Sensory Association
   Definition: Refers to the reactions of the five senses when receiving external stimuli. If the sensation shifts, with different senses interacting and exchanging perceptual domains, this is called “cross-modal perception,” or synesthesia.

Explanation: Various attributes of the same source of stimuli can be received through different sensory organs (sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch). When these sensory images overlap, a "substitution effect" occurs, meaning the image originally perceived through one sense is expressed through another sensory modality.

(2) Creative Imagination

Definition: “Without relying on others’ descriptions, but rather through a creative synthesis of stored mental images, independently generating novel, unique, and strange images—this psychological activity is called creative imagination.” In creative imagination, the creator uses their imagination to form a clear image of the object or event they wish to realize, focuses attention on this idea or scene, and imparts affirmative energy to it until it eventually becomes objective reality.

Explanation: In rhetorical devices, Symbol and Hyperbole are typical examples of “creative imagination.” A Symbol is a suggestive free association occurring under the influence of the subconscious. Hyperbole occurs when free association manifests an imagined object through the subconscious mirror, showing partial deformation (expansion or reduction).

Additionally, surreal fantasy, montage, and temporal-spatial interweaving also belong to creative imagination. For example:

1. Surreal Fantasy

“Afternoon of the Water Lettuce” / Lo Fu

Afternoon. In the pond
Crowded with clumps of pregnant water lettuce
This summer is very lonely
If it must give birth, then let it give birth to a pond of frogs

Alas, the problem is
We are merely pseudo-fat

The image of pregnant water lettuce giving birth to a pond of frogs—a continuous and absurd scene—is not an exaggeration of objects but a surreal, fantastic conception. Readers do not reject such bizarre ideas; instead, they find them novel and interesting.

2. Montage

“The Female Ghost (II)” / Lo Fu

She
Is lifted by a rope into
An extremely mournful
Liaozhai

Following the sound of the flute
Each window may seat
Her unfaithful scholar
Who went to the capital for the exam
The wind comes without sound
She flashes and leaps into
The just-closed thread-bound book

A woman attempting suicide by hanging—this image is extremely sorrowful—but the next scene is edited into “an extremely mournful / Liaozhai,” diluting the reader’s sorrow while shifting focus to the mournful Liaozhai story. “The wind comes without sound / She flashes and leaps into / The just-closed thread-bound book”—the action of leaping into the thread-bound book resembles a 3D special effects shot. This cannot be analyzed as hyperbole; it is the editing technique of montage.

3. Temporal-Spatial Interweaving

“Summer Heat in the Mountains, Seventh Grade: ‘The Sleepless Dog’” / Yu Guangzhong

Often, after the last train passes
The vast world is left
No more than a mile or half a mile away
The barking of a distant house’s dog, three barks, two barks
Only the lamp can understand
At this hour, the white-haired person under the lamp
Is also a sleepless dog
But guarding another kind of night
Barking at another kind of shadow
As long as one listens from afar
—For example, a hundred years away
It can be heard clearly

In this passage, the poet first uses a “spatial-reduction hyperbole”: “The vast world is left / No more than a mile or half a mile away / The barking of a distant house’s dog, three barks, two barks,” compressing the enormous space of the world toward the “sound.” This is also a “transformed hyperbole.” The sound of the dog barking from a distant house is one way to measure distance, yet the entire world cannot literally be condensed into “three barks, two barks,” indicating a component akin to synesthesia and “property transformation.”

Later, the poet again uses “transformed hyperbole”: “As long as one listens from afar / —For example, a hundred years away / It can be heard clearly,” using time (a hundred years) as a unit to measure distance. This serves as a “transformed image”: time, and the underlying image of distance, are clearly not the same type of imagery. This too is a technique of “transformed hyperbole.”

Section 2: Layout and Organization

Draft Text
Write out the images that have been preliminarily organized in the brain according to the initially determined sequence. The draft is a copy of the organized mental images in the brain, presenting the original thought process and aesthetic experience of the author. If this draft text is already very close to the author’s expected value, it may be accepted by the author as the “final version.” However, this ideal state of “completion in one go” is uncommon, which is why a second stage of refinement is usually necessary.

The draft text mainly serves to write the paragraphs of a poem. In past discussions of article layout, the four-part method of Introduction–Development–Transition–Conclusion is most frequently cited. Here, the author introduces narrative theory and proposes a six-part structure: Opening → Development → Turning Point → Conflict → Climax → Ending (Suspense). For detailed content, please refer to the author’s previous work, Chapter Nine: The Narrativity of Modern Poetry.

Ancient Temple / Bei Dao

The vanished chime
Forms a cobweb, in the cracks of the pillars
Spreading into rings of annual growth
No memory, stone
In the misty valley, echoes propagate
Stone, no memory
When the path bypasses this place
The dragon and the strange bird have also flown away
Taking the hoarse bell from the eaves
Wild grass grows, once a year,
So indifferent
Regardless of the masters to whom they yield—
The monk’s cloth shoes, or the wind
The stone tablet is incomplete, the text has worn away
As if only in a great fire
Could it be recognized, perhaps
With the gaze of a living being
A turtle revives in the soil
Bearing a heavy secret, crawling out of the threshold

This landscape poem, rich in historical reflection and cultural significance, is narrated from a third-person omniscient perspective, observing every aspect of the ancient temple. From the firsthand sights and sounds at the location, it transitions into historical inquiry and the exploration of religious culture, gradually organizing an understanding of the temple’s value as a cultural relic. The entire poem is written without stanza breaks; the narrative seems seamless. Yet, through the sequential switching of imagery, it can be divided according to the six-part structure: Opening → Development → Turning Point → Conflict → Climax → Conclusion.

1. Opening: Chime → Cobweb → Cracks in Pillars → Rings of Growth

"The vanished chime / Forms a cobweb, in the cracks of the pillars / Spreading into rings of annual growth"—the opening uses synesthesia, transforming sound into visual form, transitioning from the chime to the visual cobweb, and then, via association by similarity, deepening into the image of rings of growth.

2. Development: Stone → Valley → Echo

3. Turning Point: Path bypasses → Dragon and strange bird fly away → Hoarse bell taken → Wild grass → Monk’s cloth shoes, wind → Incomplete stone tablet

4. Conflict: Text on the stone tablet → A great fire

5. Climax: Inscription emerges → Gaze of the living

6. Conclusion: Turtle revives in the soil → Bearing a secret → Crawls out of the threshold

From this narrative axis, several key points can be observed:

1. The author evokes emotion through scenery (触景生情).
2. Thoughts and emotions flow with the scene and deepen into historical and cultural reflection.
3. The deepened thoughts encounter conflict (the imagined great fire).
4. After reaching insight, an outlet is found, leading to the conclusion: the value of the ancient temple lies in its existence and witness to a period of history, not in whether its physical form remains intact forever.

This translation preserves the literary and technical precision, including:

• Narrative structure terms (Opening, Development, Turning Point, Conflict, Climax, Conclusion)
• Literary devices (synesthesia, association by similarity)
• Proper nouns and titles in their original English form.

Section 3: Revision and Adjustment

Refined Text
Most drafts are like fragile cast iron, exhibiting disordered imagery, rough wording, grammatical errors, and weak rhetoric. They must undergo a second round of “processing and forging” by the author in order to approach the author’s intended value. During this processing stage, the author frequently engages in the following activities:

(A) Addition, Deletion, and Substitution of Images

1. Delete the superfluous: Remove those elements that are not expressive, weak in expressiveness, or may have a counterproductive effect, so that the textual context becomes clearer. This prevents the poem’s theme from becoming scattered and incoherent due to an overload of imagery, ensuring that the meaning remains interpretable.
2. Supplement the insufficient: If there are situations where the transitions between paragraphs are vague, the wording fails to convey meaning, or the logical chain of semantics is broken, it is necessary to appropriately adjust, replace, and supplement the imagery. This ensures that the textual context is clear and that all semantic clues are present, preventing semantic contradictions, errors, or broken logical chains.

(B) Revision and Adjustment of Grammar

1. Identify syntactic errors: Locate sentences with grammatical issues or paragraphs with contradictions in semantic logic. These can be addressed through vocabulary substitution, grammatical revision, or sentence structure adjustment. Experienced authors often identify such errors through oral recitation, noticing awkward phrasing that signals ambiguity, incompleteness, contradiction, or error in meaning.
2. Adjust sentence and paragraph order: If the author senses that a sentence or paragraph requires adjustment in its logical semantic flow, the sequence of sentences or paragraphs can be rearranged. This allows for more accurate expression of the author’s intended emotion and thought.

(C) Enhancement and Deepening of Rhetorical Techniques

In this stage, the author examines the rhetorical techniques of the draft, including both the visual layout and methods of semantic expression within the poetic lines. Low-level rhetorical devices can be elevated to higher-level forms; for example, replacing a relatively superficial simile (明喻) with a metonymy (略喻) or metaphor (暗喻). Scattered sentences of the same nature can be consolidated into parallel structures, or plain parallel structures can be enhanced into graded parallelism, creating layered effects.

Note: Steps (B) and (C) can be performed sequentially, in reverse order, or simultaneously, depending on the author’s practical needs. At this stage, the text has become the “corrected revised draft”, possessing the embryonic form of the final version.

(D) Solicit Reader Feedback

Even after the corrected revised draft is prepared, many authors remain uneasy or dissatisfied. At this point, it is advisable to let the “ugly bride appear before the in-laws first”, allowing readers to read and provide immediate feedback. Among this feedback, there will always be some useful suggestions. The author can identify and adopt these helpful opinions, proceeding with the final round of revision and processing.

The readers may be friends or family, online literary peers, or editors of newspapers and magazines. The author must have the grace to accept readers’ opinions or judgments (including rejections) in order to extract useful insights from imperfect works and improve creative techniques and capabilities. If the text encounters readers with rich experience in modern poetry or critics with knowledge of literary theory, the author’s gain will be even more substantial.

After completing the above procedures, a poem is generally finished. It is then ready to be submitted for publication or posted online, allowing more readers to read and appreciate the final version alongside the author. Of course, the feedback from readers can always be referenced for further revision and adjustment, a privilege that always remains with the author.