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The 17th Congress of the International Comparative Literature Association
The Spaces of Solitude: the Concept of Linguistic Homeland in
Beidao’s Exile Poetry
by
Cynthia Chung-man, KO
Postgraduate Student
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Beidao has significant numbers of outstanding poems with spatial images
representing the linguistic homelands.
Beidao encounters his language crisis since
he has started his exilic life since the 1989 June Fourth Incident.
His mother tongue,
the Chinese language, fails to facilitate him in interacting with the western cultural
context effectively.
Beidao’s violent poetic style does not gain the international
acclamation because of its aesthetic value, but because of its close association to
political dissentience, probably commented by western readers or critics.
Exile is, in
this way, a crisis to Beidao’s identity as a writer, and also the alienation of the
aesthetic power of the language against the foreign context.
However, situating
away from the home culture motivates him to view the language and his “self” from a
completely new perspective.
Beidao’s construction of the linguistic homeland,
therefore, means his attempt to discover a new way to interact with the new living
environment.
Self-examining the language processing is natural and necessary for
him to refresh his vision upon the more philosophical issues about the intrinsic
properties of language, and his identity as a writer.
As the linguistic homelands
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represent a new position that the Beidao enjoys after the exile, language becomes the
surrogate cultural root where the poet could negotiate a new relationship among the
mother tongue, the poet himself, and the foreign linguistic environment.
However, Beidao’s linguistic homelands remain to be the spaces of solitude
because Beidao dwells within the enclosed spaces of language while finding ways to
solve the language crisis.
To establish a conceptual framework, I will outline, in the
second section of this paper, the defining characteristics of the linguistic homelands of
the exile writers. This conceptual framework would lay a solid basis for the analysis
in the third section.
The pre-requisite of the sensible analysis is a brief introduction
to the language crisis of exile writers in the coming section.
1. Exile and Language Crisis
Exile writers often encounter language crises.
Language is the pre-requisite of
the “unified fields of exchange and communication” among the members of the
community, or the nation-state since the twentieth-century (Anderson, 44), language
functions most properly as a medium of interaction when it is placed within its culture.
The reason is that the language system is part of its own cultural system and is the
best medium to accommodate verbally the ideas and concepts of its culture.
Therefore, “practising” the mother language “actively in the everyday context” in a
prolonged period of time (Daniel, 34) is particularly essential, but is also the most
unconscious way, to formulate an individual’s cultural values, and to consolidate the
membership of his own culture, or the cultural identity.
The languages of the lonely
travelers are said to be displaced, or uprooted because they are unable to attain the
purpose of facilitating them to interact with the foreign cultural system properly.
Dwelling alone within the enclosed language system, the exile poetry often gives an
impression of solitude, emptiness and insecurity.
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The themes of emptiness and insecurity are frequent in many of Beidao’s exile
poems throughout his writing career.
In his earlier exile poem, “February,” Beidao
described his writing experience as, “I and my poems/ sink together” (1994: 194).
Sinking to the underground symbolizes belittling oneself to escape from the threat of
the external reality.
His identity as a political exile makes his poetic voice being
exposed to the public judgments.
Belittling himself indicates his desire to preserve
An image of uprootedness appears in the recent poem called “Walking
privateness.
Together,” “Words float at sea in the whole night” (2002: 95).
Losing the function of
interacting with the outside reality, language becomes a closed system within which
the poet indulges in his artistic creations.
The juxtaposition of many different
sounds of languages in the mind of the exile writer is concretized in the image of
floating at sea, which is often associated with scatteredness and lacking in direction.
Despite the freedom of artistic creation that the exile experience gives, expressing the
beauty of language out of the scattered sounds of languages requires constant
struggles.
Beidao’s effort to cast a critical perspective upon the language is to
resolve the uneasy relationship among the poet, the language, and the new living
environment.
From the above textual evidences, Beidao’s language crisis should be studied
together with the drastic change in poetic style before and after his exile.
Brought up
during the Cultural Revolution, Beidao lived in a “totally ideologized” environment
(Zhong, 13), within which the mass media invents political jargons to preach the state
ideology.
Beidao’s violent impression in his poems before his exile is inherited from
the vigorous, and highly ideologized propaganda language; but at the same time the
individual poetic hero rebelled against the propaganda language which represents
collectivity.
Although the ambition of rebelling against the authority is the centre of
public attention, including both the critics in the mainland China and in the western
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countries; after his exile, Beidao feels his existence as a writer being threatened when
he is being frequently associated with the June Fourth Incident.
Therefore, Beidao’s
anxiety towards his language, which is manifested in the poetic images of
uprootedness, is at the same time his existential crisis of being a writer.
To explain the language crisis of Beidao, it is better to investigate firstly, the
relationship of language to the poet, and secondly, its relationship to the larger cultural
context.
Firstly, Beidao feels himself alienated against his language.
Without a
daily context to practice, the languages would calcify and be forgotten; and the exile
writers would find difficult to deliver beautiful phrases and wordings.
Secondly, the
uprooted Chinese language is estranged from the western cultural context.
The
Chinese language cannot accommodate the poet’s perceptions and experiences of the
western culture.
Moreover, the democratic west’s suspicious perception of Beidao’s
poems is an invasion upon Beidao’s individuality.
Being classified as one of the
young dissentient intellectuals downplays his unique aesthetic qualities and thus, his
role as a writer. This enhances the poet’s alienation against his language: under the
suspicious eyes of the critics, Beidao finds that his former violent poetic style could
no longer create an identity that he feels comfortable with.
A reexamination of the
language is necessary to restore the poet’s insecure feeling towards his language.
Beidao creates the imaginary homelands aiming at restoring their displaced
mother tongues “in place.”
In other words, these imaginary spaces are constructed
to reexamine the inherent properties of language so that it could regain its function of
artistic creativity in the western context.
The tensions between the poet and
language on both the individual and cultural level can be reconciled in the following
two ways. Firstly, Beidao treats the linguistic spaces as the private shelter which
could accommodate his inner feelings effectively.
Secondly, the linguistic
homelands are mental spaces for him to reexamine the inherent properties of language
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in order to discover ways to facilitate its interaction with the alien cultural context.
Next section will explore how these two solutions of the language crisis are related to
the concept of home.
2. Linguistic Homelands for Exile Writers: Definition
To fully understand how the displaced mother tongues could be restored “in
place” requires the investigation of the concept of home.
Broadly speaking, home
does not necessary mean any concrete geographical place, but refers to the “goal” of
any “voyages of self-discovery” (Gurr, 13), which means the self-knowledge about
his way of life in his initiation journey.
Besides identity, the sense of home also
implies security as home provides shelter which is a basic need to any individual.
In
this way, the linguistic homeland is an imagined space constructed through writing, so
that the exile writer could restore his security feeling by adopting a critical
perspective upon his own language, and thus his own position as a writer.
linguistic homeland resolves the language crisis in two ways.
The
On the individual
level, the exile writer feels confident with the aesthetic power of his language within
the self-constructed space; on the cultural level, he needs to maintain a harmonious
relationship between the language and the foreign linguistic environment.
The
spatial image is an appropriate textual manifestation of the concept of home because it
connotes shelter and security; it also connotes an imaginary room for the writer to
search for self-knowledge.
As the secluded spaces in Beidao’s poetry imply the
existence of a boundary, the sense of home, in this way, means the harmony within
and without this imaginary room, which signifies the resolution of the contradiction
between the inner desire and the outer reality.
Language constitutes a private space so that the exile writers could free from the
threat from the alien environment.
Because language is often regarded as the
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writer’s source of identification, it is an excellent material to construct a space that is
totally belonged to oneself.
The writer Julien Green observes that “a man’s language
is so very much his own property that he almost identifies himself with it…We are
inclined to consider that what belongs to us and what we cherish most is somehow a
part of ourselves.” (Green, 160)
V. S. Naipaul is a writer who makes use of his
fictions as a private space to “struggle to face the new identity” through plot
arrangement because of “permanent exile” (Gurr, 5).
Instead of plot arrangement,
the exile poems reveal the poets’ heightened consciousness of the spatial dimension,
such as the images of dwelling within an enclosed space in Beidao’s poetry, when
creating the linguistic space.
Privateness is important for the exile writers.
For the exile writers, being
regarded as politically dissentient is another form of threat from the collectivity after
exile.
Although the mother tongues cannot effectively accommodate the exile poets’
descriptions of the perceptions and experiences in the foreign culture, the exile poets
take this as an advantage by turning inward to portray, and to explore the more
philosophical issues about existence and language as a subject matter.
As the exile
writers gain the freedom of thought, creating the linguistic space is a way to transcend
the cultural differences and examine themselves clearly, as another exile poet, Joseph
Brodsky mentions in his prose, “If art teaches anything—to the artist, in the first
place—it is the privateness of the human condition” (Brodsky, 46).
poetic style of clarity and purity to illustrate his existential crisis.
Beidao uses a
The pure language
style also means intentional omission of political jargons in order to withdraw himself
from the political discourse, which reminds himself of his traumatic memory of
political suppression before his exile.
The sphere of pivateness fosters Beidao’s
transcendence to the philosophical issues; but at the same time his withdrawal from
reality.
This poetic style explains the solitary mood of the linguistic homelands.
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The exile writer feels insecure about his language unless he could establish a
harmonious relationship between the language and the foreign linguistic context.
In
other words, he is still rootless and vulnerable when he dwells in the interiority of the
linguistic space without connecting it to a larger space, or the cultural context.
Massey’s concept of the identity of a geographical place is applicable to the linguistic
space.
“It (The identity of a place) derives, in large part, precisely from the
specificity of its interactions with ‘the outside’ ” (Massey, 13).
Therefore, the
linguistic space needs to connect to the larger reality, the foreign linguistic context.
The process of searching ways to communicate with the foreign audience is a means
to connect the private and the larger spaces.
Gurr said, “the exiles, more pressingly
concerned to find an audience than the metropolitan or expatriate writers …” (Gurr,
19).
It is especially true for political exile writers such as Beidao because they are
being deprived of the native audience due to the obligatory leave from the motherland.
However, communicating with the foreign audience does not mean integrating into
the host culture.
The exile writers often maintain a distance to the foreign culture
because distance gives the freedom of thought and insights.
Therefore, Beidao’s
linguistic homelands are spaces of solitude with the foreign audience being portrayed
as an entity outside the linguistic homelands.
Escaping from speaking for either his home culture or the host culture, the exile
writers often have close examinations of language as a subject matter, and of the
communication process.
Self-examination over language is common among exile
writers, such as Joseph Brodsky, who casts the cold, critical eyes upon his mother
tongue, the Russian language, in part of the poem called “A Part of Speech.” To
restore the identity as a writer, the exile writers repeatedly struggle over the language
processing to escape from the political jargons, which contaminates their languages.
Therefore, the process of producing language is examined as an independent subject
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matter, regardless of the nationality of the language, as shown in Beidao’s portrayal in
a highly abstract and metaphorical way. Removing the language from the political
discourse, the exile writers also restore the purity and universality of language by
foregrounding the musical context in the poems. As music is the common feature in
the poetry of different cultures and is powerful to “contain and represent any topics”
(Yeh, 212), Beidao applies musical terms to his poems in form of images reveals his
conscious thought upon the potential of language in order to make his poetry
culturally universal.
Despite the effort to detach from politics, Beidao’s insecure
feeling persists because the purity of the linguistic homelands is a constant reminder
of his being closely associated with politics.
Next section will be about the analysis of Beidao’s five poems: “The Old Castle,”
“Unlock,” “Musical Variations,” “Postwar,” and “Local Accent.” They are used to
demonstrate his ways of constructing the linguistic homelands by manipulating the
spatial relationships of inside and outside.
3. Linguistic Homelands for Beidao
i) As a Room to Examine the Language Processing in Alien Cultural Contexts
To communicate with the foreign audience
Beidao uses the metaphor of exit among the intricated spaces to signify his effort
to communicate with the foreign audience in “The Old Castle.”
the pine hedge labyrinth is grammar
you can speak until you find the exit
follow the staircases
deep into the interiority of language
unobstructed doors and hidden passages lead to
that hall which is like echo
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you shout loudly, there is no echo
(1999: 60)
The old castle is the secluded space as it is a shelter surrounded by canals; while
the “pine hedge labyrinth” is another enclosed space within it.
As Beidao has
traveled to seven European countries from 1989 to 1995 as mentioned in his essay
collection, The Blue House, it is not surprising that he has visited the old castles and
uses it as a source of poetic imagery.
However, the specific local features of the
European castles are absent in the poem when he uses this image to illustrate his
individual problems.
The castle signifies an unfamiliar context that the traveler
would explore within it. Therefore, the “you” is the same as the persona because
both are travelers within an unfamiliar context.
While the foreign castle is the
allegory of this poem, the objects found in the castle are also manipulated to
complicate the spatial relationship.
The “pine hedge labyrinth” represents the
“grammar” of, probably, the different national language systems that Beidao
encounters in the host cultures.
The intricated spatial relationship between the
labyrinth and the foreign castle assimilates the exile writers’ constant struggle among
different language systems within the foreign linguistic context.
Because the
interconnecting paths within the labyrinth assimilate the complex patterns of grammar,
searching for the “exit” of the language requires the poet’s detailed examination of the
grammatical system and language processing.
The “exit” is the means to connect the
secluded labyrinth, to the castle, which represents the larger context; so that “you,” or
the traveler, is able to speak to the foreign audience when the “exit” is discovered.
Freeing from the specific cultural features, the abstract image of the castle not only
exercises the purity of language, but also yields cross-cultural interpretations by
exploring the multiple possibilities of the meanings.
Unfortunately, instead of connecting to the larger context, Beidao gets retreated
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from the reality as he goes into the entangled spaces.
As the poet penetrates into the
interiority, he would gradually withdraw further and further from the outside because
the exit is at the centre of the labyrinth. Moreover, the persona’s passing through the
spiral “staircases,” the “unobstructed doors and hidden passages,” and reaching of the
“echoing hall” at the most centre of the castle are also images of withdrawal which
signify the poet’s investigation over the language issue.
These images evoke the
silent mood that dwelling deep into his private self provides a temporary security
feeling to the poet.
Although the simile “echo” may also represents loneliness; it is
better interpret as Beidao’s expectation to have his own voice heard within the
metaphor of space.
The absence of echo next line breaks his illusion down in a
sudden. The absence of echo within the space of solitude makes the following
implications: the breakdown of the enclosed space which disrupts the echoes; and thus,
the exposure of the poet to the threatening exteriority.
The fragile distinctions
between the inside and the outside accurately portray the ever-existing insecure
feeling of the traveler.
To connect to the alien context
The process of unlock concisely metaphorizes the connection between the
language and the larger cultural context in “Unlock”.
At the beginning of the poem,
“wine” is the key image that creates a lonely linguistic space.
“I dreamt I was
drinking wine/ the glass was empty” (1999: 163, translated by Eliot Weinberger and
Iona Man-Cheong).
“Wine and poetry are often associated with each other”
(Ouyang, 26) in the way that drinking wine often connotes sadness, solitude and
withdrawal, especially in classical Chinese poetry.
Dreaming of drinking wine in the
illusory space of dream, therefore, is an image implying that the poet’s action of
writing to describe his inner feeling to the reality. While the wine is often the
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catalyst for the classical Chinese poets to express with touching emotions about their
ambitions and responsibilities towards their country, Beidao’s “empty glass”
symbolizes his unutterable grievances.
Because searching for the right words to
create meanings is a lonely experience, Beidao situates within the solitude space of
writing. Equating “me” with “empty house” further confirms this lonely situation.
people tell lies—at the crux of meaning
they slip alongside the executioner
slip towards me: empty house
a window opens
like a high C piercing the silence
earth and compass spin
through the secret combination—
daybreak! (1999: 165)
A new poetic style is needed to express his ideas in a new linguistic environment;
however, natural force is important for Beidao in connecting the secluded linguistic
space and the larger space of cultural context.
Although it is not explicitly presented,
the sudden open of the “window” of the inner linguistic space implies the existence of
the moving wind.
The “high C” note is an alarming high note as well as the most
natural tonic note on a piano, which gives a feeling of stability and positivity.
It is
the key provided by nature to cut across the two spaces by using its powerful high
pitch. The poet, appeared as invisible observer within the “empty house,” actually
needs to make use of his poetic genius to catch the particular moment of the new, and
secret combination of meaning and language.
The image of unlock is a hopeful
picture about Beidao’s attempt to restore the function of language to express meaning.
This linguistic homeland is still a space of solitude and emptiness.
Beidao’s
struggle upon the language with the alien cultural context seems to have resolved
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metaphorically in the image of unlock.
distance from the alien context.
However, Beidao has a tendency to keep a
The boundary between the linguistic space and the
larger space outside still exists because the window only provides a limited contact
point within and without. Although the space provides a freedom of creativity to the
poet, it remains to be an empty house and fails to provide the sense of safety.
The
identity of a place is meaningful to an individual unless it gives a sense “of recourse
to a past, of a seamless coherence of character” (Massey, 12).
Beidao feels the
hollowness of his language because when the language is uprooted from its cultural
context, it gradually becomes calcify, harden, and being forgotten by the writer.
Any
of the sparkling inspirations evoked by the contact between the inner and the outer
spaces upon the poet is specified because the metaphor of unlock is not further
developed.
Therefore, Beidao’s linguistic space is isolated from the outside.
To universalize language
Beidao adds musical terms in the poem “Musical Variations” to be poetic
imageries to construct a linguistic space which is more culturally universal.
Poetry
itself is common among different national literatures because of its musicality, such as
the use of rhymes and the natural rhythms among words.
However, the musical
images in “Musical Variations” do not enhance the musicality because they are not
integrated naturally into the poetic form, but are attached abruptly to the poem
without emphasizing its rhythmical nature.
These images give hints at the exile
writer’s problem of language uprootedness.
And the choice of musical concepts,
which often associate with change and disruption, is closely related to the lonely exile
experience.
Despite recontextualizing the poem into the musical context to make it
readable for audience from different cultures, it remains to be a space of solitude
because the poem is unable to free from the context of political exile.
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Firstly, the form, “variation” as the title suggested, connotes change and
innovations.
“Variation” is a musical form “founded on repetition, and as such an
outgrowth of a fundamental musical and rhetorical principle, in which a discrete
theme is repeated several or many times with various modifications” (Grove).
In
short, this concept assumes that the stylistic innovations made in this rewritten
passage are originated in a melodic theme.
This musical term acts as the organizing
principle of this poem. This poem is about Beidao’s traveling on a bus alone at night,
an experience which is common in both the Chinese and the Western culture.
“Clouds are advancing, on the bus/ a man smiles behind his newspaper” (1993: 87).
The setting of the poem, “bus,” is highly suggestive because it yields double cultural
references. When the term “bus” is expressed in the Chinese language, it becomes
“Gong-gong-qi-che,” a very localized term for the public transport in China.
The
choice of the term “musical variation” creates an effect that the similar experience
gives Beidao a totally different feeling when it takes place in an alien context, just like
the relationship between the variation and the melodic theme, while the former is the
defamiliarized version of the latter.
The basic idea of the two musical terms is
similar to Edward Said’s “contrapuntal” (Said, 186), which is used to illustrate that
the new environment and the memory of the old environment occur against each other.
This musical term reminds Beidao of his being alienated from the foreign context.
Secondly, the musical image, “syncopation,” is associated with the concept of
disruption.
To put it simple, the term “syncopation” refers to “The regular shifting
of each beat in a measured pattern by the same amount ahead of or behind its normal
position in that pattern” (Grove).
In other words, the regular stress pattern is
disrupted and the stress positions give a sense of obscurity. This musical term is a
simile for describing the mood of the actual space of the street.
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streetlights are syncopations
I enter communal sleep
drifting through dog-bones and dog-joints
enter into the guest rooms and bedrooms, I rise in sublimation
As this poem is about the poet’s travel on a bus in the foreign country, the syncopated
streetlights probably refers to the trembling lights when the bus passes up the hills,
through the tunnels and the streets quickly during nighttime.
Beidao picks up this
daily experience to represent his journey of searching for his way of survival in the
foreign environment.
“Communal sleep,” therefore, signifies the virtual space of
collective memory of the people in the host cultures. The unstable trembling light
probably disturbs the “sleep” of the poet so that it becomes an obstacle for him to
interact with the foreign cultural context.
The simile of “syncopation” is a central
image in estranging the mood of the space and distancing the individual poet and the
larger cultural context.
ii) Mother Tongue as a Temporary Private Shelter
In “Postwar,” a poem collected in his most recent poetry selection “Unlock,”
Beidao forms a shelter in his writings to restore his secure feeling against the
traumatic memory of political suppression before his exile.
our silence
became straw pulp became
paper, that heals
the winters when we write the wounds (1999: 72)
The poetic subject is a collective “we,” which probably refers to the young, exiled
intelligentsia of the 1970s’ mainland China sharing similar background with Beidao.
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There is a positive transformation in this poem: Beidao’s generation is not stopped by
the absence of their Chinese speaking voice in the alien context; and they transform
“silence” into the linguistic space for creation, the “paper.” Writing is a private
place for them to lead a new life by having the old “wounds” recovered; in other
words, forgetting the traumatic memories of political suppression.
Although Beidao
is among the collectivity, he is able to recover his private self by turning his individual
experience into unique artistic creation.
Unfortunately, the linguistic space is only a secure shelter temporally because the
intelligentsias are not totally free from their traumatic past.
beneath the paper.
The “wounds” are
In other words, the dark shadows of the “wounds” can still be
seen even the “paper” covers upon them.
This spatial relationship makes subtle
implication upon the intelligentsias’ living under the constant threat from their
traumatic memories.
The ever-existing of the wounds in the linguistic space
prevents the poet from communicating with the larger space, the foreign cultural
context.
In the earlier exile poem called “Local Accent,” Beidao’s language is once again
placed in several perplexingly interwinding spaces created in this short passage of ten
lines; but is illustrated as a frustrating attempt.
I speak Chinese to the mirror
a park has its own winter
I put on music
winter is free of flies
I make my coffee unhurriedly
flies don’t understand what’s meant by a native land
I add a little sugar
native land is a kind of local accent
I hear my fright
on the other end of a phone line
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(1995: 137) Translated by McDougall and Chen.
The crossover of the virtual, actual and multi-cultural spaces is demonstrated in Lo
Kwai-cheung’s dissertation called The Paths That Lead Nowhere: Chinese Misty
Poetry and Modernity.
He said, “mirror is a place to fix an image, a space where the
self-identity is perceived” (Lo, 190).
Lo said, Beidao constitutes his identity in the
virtual space of mirror because he feels his mother tongue malfunctions in the foreign
land. As psychoanalyst believes that mirror is a utopia where an individual forms
his ideal self image, Beidao frustrates when he turn back to the actual space that he
situates in.
In other words, mirror is a secluded, one-man space in which the poet
maintains the function of his mother language but makes himself further withdrawn
from the reality.
Despite Lo’s emphasis on “winter” as a temporal indicator, the term
also gives hints to the distinction between the interiority and exteriority.
The
persona lives in his own space, while what happens outside is irrelevant to him.
Lo
mentions that the actual reality is exposed to the temporal change as highlighted by
the persona’s sensitivity towards the absence of the flies.
On the contrary, the native
land is a pure linguistic space, which is a stable source of self identification, and is
isolated from the temporal changes in the actual reality.
However, disillusion takes
place once this private space is connected to the actual space of his mother country
through the phone line.
Hearing the Chinese voice that situates in its own cultural
context, Beidao is fearful because the lively language forms a sharp contrast to the
frozen, uprooted language of an exile person.
This earlier poem is stylistically
different from the previous poems because Beidao strives for a clear-cut distinction
between the inside and the outside, while he regards the foreign space as a threatening
external force.
There is a reversal of spatial relationship to the more recent poems
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because he finds himself exposed to the exteriority despite his effort to construct a
private space.
Most importantly, Beidao is still in isolation although he has crossed
over multiple spaces.
4. Conclusion
To conclude, the linguistic homelands in Beidao’s exile poems are spaces of
solitude, emptiness and insecurity.
a lonely effort.
collapsing.
Firstly, the creation of the linguistic homeland is
Secondly, the boundary of inside and outside is fragile and
Beidao feels more secure when he is within a private space and
maintains a distance to the foreign culture. Therefore, when he attempts to establish
the connection with the foreign cultural context, in fact, he dwells further inside to
achieve this end.
He is further withdrawn from the reality.
Finally, the linguistic
space is of emptiness because of the irresolvable problem of the uprooted language.
Creating an inner shelter and communicating with the cultural contexts are two
separate aims; therefore, it is difficult to fulfill these at the same time.
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Works Cited
Anderson, Benedict Richard O'Gorman. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the
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jiu si [Midnight Singer: Selected Poems of Beidao 1972-1994]. Taibei shi: Jiu
ge chu ban she, 1995. p.194.
---. Lan Fangzi [The Blue House]. Taibei shi: Jiu ge chu ban she you xian gong si,
1998. p.203.
---. “Xiang Yin” [Local Accent] in Wu ye ge shou: Beidao shi xuan yi jiu qi er - yi
jiu jiu si [Midnight Singer: Selected Poems of Beidao 1972-1994]. Taibei shi:
Jiu ge chu ban she, 1995. p.137.
---. “Bian Zou Qu” [Musical Variations] in Zai tian ya: Beidao shi xuan [At the
Sky’s Edge: Selected Poetry of Beidao]. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press,
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---. “Gu Bao” [The Old Castle ] in Kai suo: Beidao yi jiu jiu liu - yi jiu jiu ba
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p.59-63.
---. “Zan Hou” [Postwar ] in Kai suo: Beidao yi jiu jiu liu - yi jiu jiu ba [Unlock:
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---. “Kai Suo” [Unlock ] in Kai suo: Beidao yi jiu jiu liu - yi jiu jiu ba [Unlock:
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---. “Walking Together” [Tong xing] in Today 53 (Summer 2002): 95.
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