On the Question of Poetry

#PUBLICATION NOTE

This edition of On the Question of Poetry has been prepared and revised for digital publication by the Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism under the Central Committee of the Communist Party in Switzerland on the basis of the following edition: Chairman Mao's Letter to Comrade Chen Yi Discussing Poetry, in the Beijing Review, Vol. 21, No. 2 (13th of January, 1978).

#INTRODUCTION NOTE

This is a letter from Comrade Mao Zedong to Comrade Chen Yi dated the 21st of July, 1965.

#Workers and oppressed people of the world, unite!

#ON THE QUESTION OF POETRY

#LETTER TO CHEN YI

#Mao Zedong

#21st of July, 1965

#★

#To Comrade Chen Yi

You asked me to polish your poems, but I am unable to, as I have never learnt how to write lüshi in five-character lines and have never published any in that form. Your poems have power and range. Only I feel that, in form, or metrically, they are not quite lüshi.¹ For it has strict tonal patterns, without which a poem cannot be called lüshi. In this respect, I think, both of us are still beginners. I have occasionally written a few seven-character lüshi, but none of them satisfies me. Just as you are good at writing unorthodox verse, I know a little about ci² with lines of different lengths. Ye Jianying is good at seven-character lüshi, and old Comrade Dong Biwu at five-character lüshi. If you want to write in these forms, you can ask for their advice.

Journeying Westward

I speed westward ten thousand li,

Riding the wind over infinite space;

Had not this giant roc spread its wings,

How could one traverse this void crossed only by birds?

The sea below ferments a thousand goblets of wine,

And mountains tower to great heights with onion spires.

Everywhere we find good friends,

As wind and thunder sweep the world.

I made changes in this poem and am still far from satisfied with the result. I am afraid I cannot do the rest.

Another thing is that poetry uses images to convey ideas and should not communicate plainly as in prose. So we cannot dispense with bi (similes and metaphors) or with xing (association). We may also use the technique of fu (direct statement), as in Du Fu's³ Northern Journey, which may be said to «state in plain terms», but here, too, he used bi and xing. «Bi means comparing one object to another», and «xing means speaking first of something else to lead up to the main theme». Han Yu⁴ used prose techniques in poetry, and some people said he knew nothing at all about poetry, but that was going too far, as some of his poems, like The Rocks, Mount Heng, and To Prefectural Official Chang on the 15th Day of the Eighth Month, are really not bad. We can see, therefore, that it is not easy to write poetry. Most Song poets did not understand that poetry must convey ideas by means of images, and they disregarded the tradition of Tang poetry, with the result that what they wrote was quite flat. These random remarks all refer to classical poetry. To write modern poetry, we must use the method of conveying ideas through images in reflecting the class struggle and the struggle for production, and must definitely not go in for classicism. But for the last few decades, poetry in the vernacular has not been successful. There have been some good folk songs, however. It is very likely that the future trend will be to draw nourishment and adopt forms from the folk song and develop a new type of poetry, which will appeal to the general reading public. Incidentally, Li Bai⁵ wrote very few lüshi, and Li He,⁶ apart from a few five-character lüshi, never wrote any in seven-character lines. Li He is well worth reading. I don't know if you are interested.

With best wishes:

#Mao Zedong

#21st of July, 1965