New Perspectives on Contemporary Chinese Poetry

It spreads its wings and the 如÷地øùúû¹ü|
universe follows, drifting upward ü|ýþ呵üÔ|4
Dawn is a song, short and bright
Igniting itself in the fog
If the horizon line rises to bind you
It can only bind your wings,
not your flight
(Luo 1967: 18–19)

In the first stanza, we meet a fashionable egret that reads turn-of-
the-century French novels. Luo Fu’s mention of Gide’s novel actually
functions well in the poem. It creates an interesting dichotomy of
imagery within the text: the heavy, earthy quality of the book’s title
contrasts sharply with the fleeting, ephemeral qualities of both the
egret’s mental processes as well as the fog and reflections of its physical
environment. This produces a tension between earthbound limitations
and free mental flight.
The contrast between body and mind continues in the second stanza as
well and achieves resolution in the final stanza. The egret takes flight,
leaving the world behind for a realm of freedom. We learn in the last two
lines that even if its wings were tied, its freedom would not be diminished.
The poem expresses the age-old truth that iron bars do not a prison make.
In 1970, Luo Fu published a collection titled River Without Banks
無o, the most significant portion of which was a small group of
eleven poems titled “Saigon Poems” 抄derived from Luo Fu’s
experience in Vietnam. The poems effectively combine a Surrealist
poetics with the tighter structure and more succinct language of his
third collection, such as in “Fish” :

Anyway, only a petal of the
setting sun remains in his eyes
There’ll still be time tomorrow
to break the mirror
He stands reverently at H-town
A poplar flies around him
Casually looking up, he sees
Bone ashes drifting from a chimney
Or is it butterflies?

He wrings his hands and ponders
As the whiteness beyond the
window becomes a myriad of colors
He is the sole hero of a thousand tales
Washing his hands may only
create another woe

The Poetic Odyssey of Luo Fu 73

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