Two Chinese Poets Discuss Poetry in Bangkok

By Sun Kan

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Two Chinese Poets Discuss Poetry in Bangkok

By Sun Kan

On November 8, 2015, a dialogue on poetry between Luo Fu and Long Bide was held in Bangkok, Thailand. Luo Fu, a poet of Taiwan, is described by some people as the most outstanding and most influential poet of China. The 88-year-old poet has published 37 collections of poetry. Long Bide is a Hangzhou-based poet and critic of national renown. Over the past 30 years, Long has conducted an in-depth study on the poetry of Luo Fu.

That was how the dialogue could take place. The organizer, a literary club of the local Chinese community in Bangkok, published Luo Fu’s poems and Long Bide’s comments in a local newspaper, a whole page per day for three consecutive days. A diplomat from the Chinese embassy to Thailand spoke highly of the dialogue and described it as an unprecedented event in the history of the literature of the local Chinese community.

At the dialogue, Long Bide first talked about what motivated him to focus on the poetry of Luo Fu. “I hold his poetry in high esteem and I focus more on his lifelong dedication to poetry and his lifelong exploration into poetic beauty,” explained Long.

Long’s study of Luo Fu’s poetry is thorough and profound. At the dialogue,he covered issues such as Luo Fu’s contribution to the evolution of modern Chinese poetry, static tragedy, spiritual interaction with the world, imagism, exploration into nothingness and truth, quests into form. Long summarized by saying that Luo Fu had spent his life trying to integrating the best of Chinese poetry and Western poetry. In the eyes of Long, Luo Fu’s contribution to Chinese poetics comprised his lifetime dedication, his spirituality, his aesthetics, his poetry, his language, and his innovative approach to form and substance of modern poetics.

Luo Fu emphasized the nationality in his poems. He observed that China was in his heart wherever he went. “Though I left China for another country when I was getting old, China is in my heart wherever I am. China has nourished and nurtured me, shaped my personality, cultivated my spirit and mind, taught me about Chinese culture and history and given me dignity! I want to say, just as Thomas Mann said about his motherland Germany while in exile in America, that I am where Chinese culture is,” said Luo Fu. His remarks touched off thundering applause and cheer.

Long Bide has published three books on Luo Fu and his poetry in addition to more than 10 essays on Luo Fu. The fruitful research can be attributed partly to his own status as a poet. Since his first poems printed in 1958, he has written and published nearly 50 books on poetry and criticism.

Long has spent so much time on reading Luo Fu for three reasons: Luo Fu has a unique style, profound thought, versatile expressions in his poems and presents a broad world of his own in his poetry; he is a typical poet of renown at home and abroad; he writes poems and has his own poetics. His poetry can provides a fine example of how modern Chinese poetry impacts the evolution of Chinese culture in general.

Long Bide first read Taiwan poets in 1982. In the early autumn of 1988, he met in with Luo Fu and other poets from Taiwan who were sightseeing in Hangzhou. In the winter of 1988, he read Luo Fu deeply and found resonation in his own heart.

龍彼德由洛夫研究走向更廣闊的臺灣詩人研究。圖為2011年6月龍彼德夫婦（左二、左一）在海南與臺灣詩人羅門、蓉子夫婦合影。Long Bide has expanded his research into more Taiwan poets. In the picture taken in June 2011 are Long Bide and his wife on the left and Taiwan poet Luo Men and his wife Rongzi.

Long found mainland critics misunderstood Luo Fu to varying degrees. Though critics in Taiwan did quite a remarkable job in evaluating Luo Fu, their research was by no means perfect. Long Bide wrote to Luo Fu and talked about his understanding of the Taiwan poet. And Luo Fu wrote back pretty soon. The correspondence between the two became intense. In the summer of 1990,Long spent 18 days writing a long essay on Luo Fu’s poetics. It caused a sensation across the straits.

Then it dawned on him that an essay wasn’t adequate for a poet who had made such tremendous contribution to the maturity and growth of modern Chinese poetry. Why not write a critical biography? It happened that Luo Fu had thought of the same idea. He suggested that Long write a book on his life and poetry. Long agreed. Luo Fu provided Long with materials. For two years, Long read up books on western culture, religion, philosophy, art, and poetics while conducting research and organizing his thought. Then he spent 8 months writing the book. The book was published in May 1995 and was critically acclaimed. In October 2005, it was awarded a gold medal at the 3rd Dragon Culture Prize issued by the International Chinese Culture Research Institute.

In 1998, Long Bide published a new book on Luo Fu, describing Luo Fu’s obsession with poetry.

After his migration to Canada in April 1996, Luo Fu tried something new in poetry. In recent years, he has tried to integrate surrealism and Zen in his poems. Long has followed the changes. In October 2011, Long published his third book on Luo Fu in Taiwan. The mainland version came out in 2012.

Long Bide has treated Luo Fu as a case study for decades simply because of Luo Fu’s life experience and changes in his poems. “Luo Fu has exiled himself twice in his lifetime. First he went away from his home. Then he went away from motherland to a foreign country. Over the past 15 years, he has shuttled between the three places every year more frequently than he traveled across the straits 30 years ago,” observed Long. Luo Fu has built a golden pyramid of Chinese poems on the basis of the geographic triangle. Long believes Luo Fu is a world-class poet.