酷我-北美枫

[ericcoliu]

The following piece has been accepted and will be published in the Spring 2008 Issue (online & print) of The Stellar Showcase Journal, a literary journal affiliated with The Ontario Poetry Society.


No Difference

As I walk to Progress Avenue
People pass by one another hurriedly
Thus, the indifference
To a homeless.
Homeless John Doe
Can’t remember
The human faces moving past
Thus, the indifference
Of humanity.


Note:

For anyone who is interested in the homeless issue in Canada, one can log on to the CBC website and check out a well-made documentary, Devil Plays Hardball, posted at www.cbc.ca/passionateeyesunday/devilplayshardball/ . It is a radical interventionist documentary by Paperny Films that seeks to answer this question. Four well-established Vancouver residents have 10-months to mentor homeless individuals from various Vancouver neighbourhoods who have the desire -- but not necessarily the means -- to re-enter mainstream society. What ensues is a complicated journey that provides an up-close and intimate look at the people most of us choose to ignore -- Canada's homeless.
_________________
Time is nothing but a disquiet of the soul

[[ericcoliu]]

The following piece has been accepted and will be published in the Spring 2008 Issue (online & print) of The Stellar Showcase Journal, a literary journal affiliated with The Ontario Poetry Society.


No Difference

As I walk to Progress Avenue
People pass by one another hurriedly
Thus, the indifference
To a homeless.
Homeless John Doe
Can’t remember
The human faces moving past
Thus, the indifference
Of humanity.


Note:

For anyone who is interested in the homeless issue in Canada, one can log on to the CBC website and check out a well-made documentary, Devil Plays Hardball, posted at www.cbc.ca/passionateeyesunday/devilplayshardball/ . It is a radical interventionist documentary by Paperny Films that seeks to answer this question. Four well-established Vancouver residents have 10-months to mentor homeless individuals from various Vancouver neighbourhoods who have the desire -- but not necessarily the means -- to re-enter mainstream society. What ensues is a complicated journey that provides an up-close and intimate look at the people most of us choose to ignore -- Canada's homeless.
_________________
Time is nothing but a disquiet of the soul

[星子]

Hi Eric,

I don't like these two "Thus", I think better to have smooth flow and strong images if you want it stand as a poem.

Agree or not?

Anna
_________________

[[ANNA]]

Hi Eric,

I don't like these two "Thus", I think better to have smooth flow and strong images if you want it stand as a poem.

Agree or not?

Anna
_________________

[ericcoliu]

Hi! 星子:

I agree with you that two “thus” makes the perceptual flow of Indifference bumpy. That’s the key point of Indifference, which invites a different kind of reader participation.

There is an abrupt transition from line 2 to line 3, where the cause of “thus”, a word indicative of effect, is left unexplained or not clearly expressed. This creates a logical gap that the reader must fill. By the same token, in order for the poem to make sense, the reader must take a conceptual leap from the first “thus” to the second one .
_________________
Time is nothing but a disquiet of the soul

[[ericcoliu]]

Hi! 星子:

I agree with you that two “thus” makes the perceptual flow of Indifference bumpy. That’s the key point of Indifference, which invites a different kind of reader participation.

There is an abrupt transition from line 2 to line 3, where the cause of “thus”, a word indicative of effect, is left unexplained or not clearly expressed. This creates a logical gap that the reader must fill. By the same token, in order for the poem to make sense, the reader must take a conceptual leap from the first “thus” to the second one .
_________________
Time is nothing but a disquiet of the soul

[星子]

Hi Eric,

thank u for your explanation.

Let me read it again.
_________________

[[ANNA]]

Hi Eric,

thank u for your explanation.

Let me read it again.
_________________

[Lake]

Most of the time, a short poem deserves more reads than a long one because it is so compact that it requires a reader to fill in the vacuum ; thus it took me several reads.

Very good juxtaposition displayed here!

[[Lake]]

Most of the time, a short poem deserves more reads than a long one because it is so compact that it requires a reader to fill in the vacuum ; thus it took me several reads.

Very good juxtaposition displayed here!

[Champagne]

Indeed, Indifference makes No Difference.

The use of the word thus prompts me to think of the similiar use of thus in Fei Ming's Street Corner (Chinese title is Jietou) that is marked by thus at three points wherein the feeling of loneliness emerges -- the alienation of modern man.
_________________
I'm Champagne,
Bottled poetry with sparkling joy.

[[Champagne]]

Indeed, Indifference makes No Difference.

The use of the word thus prompts me to think of the similiar use of thus in Fei Ming's Street Corner (Chinese title is Jietou) that is marked by thus at three points wherein the feeling of loneliness emerges -- the alienation of modern man.
_________________
I'm Champagne,
Bottled poetry with sparkling joy.

[ericcoliu]

This poem shows my deference to Fei Ming’s achievement.

As Haoming Liu notes,

“From Hu Shi’s ahistorical reassessment of this tradition to Zhou Zuoren’s theory of cyclic development and selective identification, the major May Fourth authors offered a range of ways of rewriting China’s literary history. Though belonging to the generation after that of Hu and Zhou’s, Fei Ming continued to be obsessed with the problem of tradition in the New Literature. Unlike Hu and Zhou, however, who were mainly theorists, as an aspiring author Fei Ming had his own creative work at stake in the search for a viable reinterpretation and re-appropriation of the tradition. Thanks to his penetrating understanding of some of the most basic issues in Western literature and its similarity with and difference from China’s literary tradition, in his discursive and creative writings Fei Ming presented some ingenious solutions to the problem of how to dynamically appropriate and make relevant tradition in a modern context.”

While his poem, Street Corner, uncannily portrays the alienation of modern man when confronting the emerging world of modern technology, commerce, and cross-cultural contacts, my poem, No Difference, calls upon the reader to re-connect oneself to humanity when living in a progressive, individualistic society.
_________________
Time is nothing but a disquiet of the soul

[[ericcoliu]]

This poem shows my deference to Fei Ming’s achievement.

As Haoming Liu notes,

“From Hu Shi’s ahistorical reassessment of this tradition to Zhou Zuoren’s theory of cyclic development and selective identification, the major May Fourth authors offered a range of ways of rewriting China’s literary history. Though belonging to the generation after that of Hu and Zhou’s, Fei Ming continued to be obsessed with the problem of tradition in the New Literature. Unlike Hu and Zhou, however, who were mainly theorists, as an aspiring author Fei Ming had his own creative work at stake in the search for a viable reinterpretation and re-appropriation of the tradition. Thanks to his penetrating understanding of some of the most basic issues in Western literature and its similarity with and difference from China’s literary tradition, in his discursive and creative writings Fei Ming presented some ingenious solutions to the problem of how to dynamically appropriate and make relevant tradition in a modern context.”

While his poem, Street Corner, uncannily portrays the alienation of modern man when confronting the emerging world of modern technology, commerce, and cross-cultural contacts, my poem, No Difference, calls upon the reader to re-connect oneself to humanity when living in a progressive, individualistic society.
_________________
Time is nothing but a disquiet of the soul

[Champagne]

Glad to know that you're one of admirers of Fei Ming's work.

Fei Ming, whose literal meaning is to abolish names and thus to do away with reputations, was a pioneers of lyrically descriptive fiction based on ordinary daily, which was defying the dominant literary ideology of his day -- speaking out on behalf of the oppressed classes and creating a social revolution in literature. As a disciple of Zhou Zouren, He follows Zhou's aesthetics of "blandness" (pingdam) and "naturalness" (ziran) when describing the life in his hometown.

Share with you one of his poems:

To Zhilin


I said: “Let me write a letter to the poet in the south."
Then I spotted the scant shadow of a tree in the yard.
It had written a letter to noontime.
I felt like writing a poem
Like the sun, the moon,
The shade at noon,
A giant tree showering leaves --
My poem doesn't have even two leaves.
_________________
I'm Champagne,
Bottled poetry with sparkling joy.

[[Champagne]]

Glad to know that you're one of admirers of Fei Ming's work.

Fei Ming, whose literal meaning is to abolish names and thus to do away with reputations, was a pioneers of lyrically descriptive fiction based on ordinary daily, which was defying the dominant literary ideology of his day -- speaking out on behalf of the oppressed classes and creating a social revolution in literature. As a disciple of Zhou Zouren, He follows Zhou's aesthetics of "blandness" (pingdam) and "naturalness" (ziran) when describing the life in his hometown.

Share with you one of his poems:

To Zhilin


I said: “Let me write a letter to the poet in the south."
Then I spotted the scant shadow of a tree in the yard.
It had written a letter to noontime.
I felt like writing a poem
Like the sun, the moon,
The shade at noon,
A giant tree showering leaves --
My poem doesn't have even two leaves.
_________________
I'm Champagne,
Bottled poetry with sparkling joy.

[ericcoliu]

"When I was a kid, and you asked me, 'what do you want to be when you grow up?', I didn't say a heroin addict…I want to have a family someday...and a house of my own."
– Michael, homeless in Vancouver
_________________
Time is nothing but a disquiet of the soul

[[ericcoliu]]

"When I was a kid, and you asked me, 'what do you want to be when you grow up?', I didn't say a heroin addict…I want to have a family someday...and a house of my own."
– Michael, homeless in Vancouver
_________________
Time is nothing but a disquiet of the soul

[dundas]

[quote="ericcoliu"]

No Difference
As I walk to Progress Avenue
People pass by one another hurriedly
Thus, the indifference
To a homeless.
Homeless John Doe
Can’t remember
The human faces moving past
Thus, the indifference
Of humanity.

Yes, well said. The indifference of humanity makes no difference in tackling the homeless issue.

But, do you think your poem making No Difference?
_________________
My throat knew thirst before the structure
Of skin and vein around the well

[[dundas]]

[quote="ericcoliu"]

No Difference
As I walk to Progress Avenue
People pass by one another hurriedly
Thus, the indifference
To a homeless.
Homeless John Doe
Can’t remember
The human faces moving past
Thus, the indifference
Of humanity.

Yes, well said. The indifference of humanity makes no difference in tackling the homeless issue.

But, do you think your poem making No Difference?
_________________
My throat knew thirst before the structure
Of skin and vein around the well

[ericcoliu]

[[ericcoliu]]