Lee Min-yung knew early in life he would be a poet. Both he and his former schoolmate Tseng Kuei-hi recall a chance meeting in front of Kaohsiung Railway Station four decades ago, when Lee declared that both aspiring poets must hold on to their poetic ideals. "Let's spare no effort to compose poems with soul," he said.
After four decades of passion and devotion to poetry, Lee has been rewarded with a proud sense of self-achievement--and this year's National Award for Arts in literature, the highest honor for a writer in Taiwan.
Tseng, who continued to write poetry even as he pursued a career as a thoracic doctor, sees Lee's poem The Darkroom as a metaphor for a generation of post-war Taiwanese poets. He says the presentation of the award to Lee is bringing light to the "darkroom" generation.
"Lee is the one who pushed the door open and his award also represents great recognition for the genre created by post-war poets in Taiwan," says Tseng, adding that he shared the honor as a post-war poet--one who tried to redirect the history of Taiwanese poetry, once dominated by China-oriented ideology, so that it could take root and blossom in Taiwanese soil.
Lin Chi-yang, better known by his pen name Xiang Yang, says Lee won the award because he "established a forum where political and historical debates were facilitated through poetry; hence creating a paradigm for cultural discourse on Taiwanese poems." Xiang Yang is one of seven committee members of the National Cultural and Arts Foundation who voted unanimously to grant Lee the award. He is also an associate professor of Taiwanese literature at National Taipei Education University.
The Darkroom (1983) shed light on Taiwan's socio-political reality during the martial law period. Its fearless tone helped characterize Lee's poems as "antiwar, anti-authoritarian and anti-spiritual imprisonment of any kind," according to Xiang Yang.
It is a world
Fearful of bright thoughts
It blocks and silences
All the cries
Truth exists here
Only in its negative form
A tiny bit of light
Can destroy it all.
Critic Peng Jui-chin says, "Lee was born as a poet with sensitivity, shrewd observation skills and a tender heart who transmits voices of light to his countrymen." Xiang Yang adds that Lee's oeuvre embodies "the trinity of antiwar literature, historical reflection and critical realism."
Resurrecting Meaning
The 60-year-old Lee says the award came as a surprise to him, since he has been intentionally distancing himself from any government-related awards or projects. This orientation began with his 1970 rejection of the Outstanding Young Poet award so he could remain soberly critical of the conservative establishment and politically advantaged groups.
Lee has accepted private awards in the past, including Wu Yung-fu's Cultural Criticism Award in 1990, Wu Cho-liu's New Poetry Award in 1992 and Lai Ho's Literature Award in 1998. He decided to accept the National Award for Arts this year because he thinks it highlights the contributions of his generation of post-war poets. He humbly accepted it on their behalf.
During the award presentation ceremony in late October, Lee quoted senior Taiwanese poet Wu Ying-tao's poem The Sky is Resurrected (1971) to head off any accusations of inconsistency on his part for accepting the award:
The chest split open
Is a clear blue sky
Was a bird walking past that will be flying
toward splendor
The sky is resurrected
And the resurrection of the sky
Came about because birds soar forever overhead
"Like a lone bird ... I'd like to join the flock and collective efforts to resurrect meaning in the sky," Lee told the audience.
"Poets are often perplexed as they try to reconcile their wills and historical emotions," Lee says, referring to the historical pressures that "continue to haunt Taiwan's transition toward becoming a normal country." He adds, "Past political interference may have been replaced by business interests [as the primary factor that inhibits or diminishes creativity], which again contribute to a loss of meaning in society--a worrying phenomenon and a bottleneck for poetry's comprehensibility and creation." He hopes his devotion to literature will inspire future generations to "reconstruct a Taiwan-centered history."
As Russian-American poet and 1987 Nobel Prize in literature winner Joseph Brodsky (1940-1996) put it, "There are some questions that philosophers can't answer, whereas poets can." Lee hopes that the award does not mark an end to his poetic achievements, but a renewal of his quest to shoulder a poet's philosophical responsibilities.
Coming of Age
Born in the southern city of Kaohsiung in 1947, Lee spent most of his childhood in Pingtung County. His cultural influences included outings to Taiwanese opera shows and movie theaters as a primary school student. To this day, Lee vividly recalls strolls along the county's seashore and the area's lush scenery. Lee says his pastoral past "nurtured my life and poems, and ensured I would not become an unfortunate city kid who would never know the countryside's beauty and thus be pitied by English poet W. H. Auden."
"Lee's attachment to the land of Taiwan has been an important spiritual element in his poems," says Xiang Yang.
At the age of 15, Lee returned to the city of his birth to attend Provincial Kaohsiung Senior High School. He had done well on the entrance exam, allowing him to enroll at the school of his choice, but he became more and more disaffected with the patriarchal and authoritarian educational system. He shifted his focus to extracurricular reading. As his grades lost ground, Lee gained a growing appreciation for literature, burying his nose in poetry and political publications such as the Epoch Poetry Quarterly and Free China Bi-weekly as well as political and business news reports.
His writing career began at the tender age of 17, when his first prose was published in a local newspaper.
Lee did not gain admittance to university when he graduated. Instead, he fulfilled his two-year mandatory military service. He was stationed in Taichung, in central Taiwan. During his military service, he continued to write poems. He was a major contributor to Li Poetry magazine.
The publication of Handkerchief (1969) was an artistic turning point for Lee. After Handkerchief, he was no longer "a sentimental youth whose poems were beautifully worded yet preoccupied with egocentric vanity for the purpose of self-redemption," says Lee. "I positioned myself as an antiwar poet and found my role--to voice my concerns."
Lee took on the voice of a war widow to drive home his antiwar message in Handkerchief.
Returning from the battlefield
once was your handkerchief
Like a flag of truce
once was your handkerchief
Continually bringing tears
once was your handkerchief
Now piercing my heart like shrapnel
Returning from the battlefield
once was your handkerchief
Handed down to me like a sentence
once was your handkerchief
Choking my youth
once was your handkerchief
Now burying me in a landslide
Your sad white handkerchief
Permanently seals my collapsing breast
In the late 1960s, Lee's antiwar views awakened in him a new identity--that of a Taiwanese, replacing the illusory Chinese identity foisted on him by the Kuomintang (KMT) government that in 1945 replaced the Japanese colonial regime that had ruled Taiwan since 1895.
Raised in Pingtung County, Lee says the rural lifestyle of his youth nurtured him and gave rise to his poetic aspirations. (Photo by Chang Su-ching)
"I was born in 1947 when the 228 Incident occurred. [228] marked a stark contrast between life and death" Lee says, referring to the thousands of Taiwanese civilians believed to have been killed by KMT forces in the 228 Incident, which began on February 28, 1947, when demonstrators sought punishment for government agents who had pistol-whipped a vendor for selling black-market cigarettes.
"But only in my late teens did I come to apprehend the post-228 societal abnormality, and become agonized by the fact that my predecessor generation of Japanese-educated poets was mostly silenced as a result of the official linguistic shift from Japanese to Mandarin," he adds.
Unimpressed by KMT propaganda, Lee was more inspired by the cultural legacy left by independent-minded Taiwanese writers such as Yang Kui (1905-1985), who protested oppression under both Japanese and KMT rule in his work. He also respected writers of his father's generation (mostly born in the 1920s) who struggled to overcome linguistic barriers so they could write well in Chinese.
Through these role models, Lee learned about the history of Taiwan, which was not even taught in local universities in 1970, when he became a history major at National Chung Hsing University in Taichung.
Lee continued to write poetry for publication and served as editor-in-chief at Li Poetry, where he became associated with like-minded poets. He also wrote novellas and contributed articles to newspapers.
Poetry Disseminator
Since 1971, he has introduced international poems to Taiwanese readers, focusing on the translation of works by contemporaries. He says he is inspired and moved by how "free men can use literature as a tool to maintain their free minds in difficult circumstances."
"My intention was to map Taiwan in a global context, one in which China is one nation [and Taiwan is a separate one], instead of constraining Taiwan within the 'Greater China' myth," he says.
Lee professes esteem for Polish poet Zbigniew Herbert, who served in the Polish resistance during World War II and refused to bend to the will of the Communist Party during the Cold War. He also admires French poets Andre Gide and Paul Valery, who said they would rather die than see their writing interfered with.
The list of foreign poets whose work Lee has translated continues to lengthen. It includes Czeslaw Milosz, a Pole; Russian-American Joseph Brodsky; Nizim Hikmet from Turkey; Tamura Ryuichi from Japan; and Czech poets Jaroslav Seifert, Antonin Bartusek and Miroslav Holub.
In his 20s and 30s, Lee's jobs--as a schoolteacher, journalist and copywriter at advertising companies--often impacted his poetry output. But the paid positions helped him sustain a family of four, including two daughters. And he never stopped writing poetry. His poems from this period included Our Island (1978), A Flower on the Scorched Land (1969), He Loves Birds (1981) and From the Window Behind the Iron Bar (1981). He also wrote a series of poems condemning pollution and social injustice.
A Poet Activist
After turning 40, Lee became a manager at a real estate company, which allowed him more time to focus on his writing. He was prolific as a poet and also as a poetry critic and as a columnist on political and cultural issues. He also organizes seminars--and has found the time to publish and edit a series of literature textbooks.
"My writing output has quadrupled over the past two decades," Lee says, referring to his poetry collections, which include Landscapes under Martial Law (1990), Inclining Island (1993), Sonatas in Soul (1999) and If You Ask (2001). Like much of Lee's work, the If You Ask title poem, originally written in 1994, is a fusion of poetry, history and political commentary:
If you ask
Who is the father of the island of Taiwan
I will tell you
The sky is the father of the island of Taiwan
If you ask
Who is the mother of the island of Taiwan
I will tell you
The ocean is the mother of the island of Taiwan
If you ask
What is the past of the island of Taiwan
I will tell you
Blood and tears drop on the feet of the history of
Taiwan
If you ask
What is the present of the island of Taiwan
I will tell you
Corruption in power is eroding the Taiwanese soul
If you ask
What is the future of the island of Taiwan
I will tell you
Step out on your feet, the road is open to you
...
Thanks to his reputation for moral integrity as well as connections in business and among activists, he was invited to head up non-governmental organizations like the Deng Liberty Foundation, Taiwan Peace Foundation and the Taiwan Association for Human Rights.
By putting his words into action, Lee is "one of the few poets in Taiwan who are deeply involved in the nation's political, social and cultural development," says Cheng Chiung-ming, chairman of the Liberty Taiwan Foundation.
As a social activist and supporter of Taiwan's democracy movement, Lee advised Chen Shui-bian on cultural policy planks during the 2000 presidential election campaign.
Bouquets and Brickbats
National Cultural and Arts Foundation Chairman Lee Kuei-shien, also a poet, complements Lee on his skill at using his pen to fight political oppression, calling him a "realistic yet idealistic thinker poet." Other critics have called him "the poet of autumn," citing his use of "plain language, controlling images and related vocabulary." Cheng Chiung-ming says of Lee, "His poems are linguistically charismatic, reflecting profound historical deliberation while presenting new discoveries." However, some critics argue that Lee is sometimes too willing to dispense with rhythm in favor of conciseness.
Lee does not deny that he cares more about images and connotations than rhythm in some of his poems. Nevertheless, much of his work is profoundly lyrical and rhythmic, including his collaborations with composer Tyzen Hsiao: 1947 Overture and Ah, Formosa.
Some critics also complain that the Holo-speaking Lee has made little effort to utilize his mother tongue, also known as Taiwanese, in his poems. Lee blames the Mandarin Chinese education he received and the lack of a unified written Holo system. Still, he is "eager to see the facilitation of systematic written characters in the native language," and to play a part in reviving it with his poetry.
"I haven't done enough, but my poetry pursuits haven't come to an end yet," says Lee, who has published more than 40 books to date. He adds that he will try to live up to others' expectations.
By way of encouraging his old friend, Tseng Kuei-hi says, "A writer's pen will not cease until death completes his life." And so the journey the two young poets began at Kaohsiung Railway Station four decades ago continues; as does their devotion to poetry.
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Joyce Huang is a freelance reporter based in Taipei.
Copyright © 2007 by Joyce Huang