Verse Version: A Biannual Journal of Poetic Practice and Scholarship Published by Leoman Publishing Co. LTD (UK-Registered), Verse Version, registered with Print ISSN 2051-526X and Online ISSN 2399-9705, is a peer-reviewed academic journal dedicated to advancing the study and creation of poetry across linguistic and cultural boundaries. Released biannually (Summer & Winter), it serves as a rigorous platform for poets, translators, and scholars to explore the art of verse in its multifaceted dimensions.
A Memorial Service for J. H. Prynne Held at Sun Yat-sen University
This academic event report documents a memorial service for the British poet Jeremy Halvard Prynne, held at Sun Yat-sen University on 19 June 2026 and organized by the English Poetry Studies Institute. It reviews Prynne’s more than four decades of scholarly and personal ties with Chinese academics, poets, and students, including his work as a visiting professor, mentor, advisor, and supporter of English poetry studies in China. The report records tributes by Ou Hong, Lei Yanni, Li Zhimin, Guangkui Zhang, and other scholars, as well as the reading of Prynne’s handwritten letter to members of the Institute. It also highlights Zhang’s performance of a bilingual elegy inspired by Prynne’s poetics of difficulty. The event is presented as both a solemn remembrance and a continuation of Prynne’s enduring academic and poetic legacy.
Ezra Pound and Mysteries of Takasago: Alongside the Japanese Medieval Poetics
On his first submission of cantos — Three Cantos — in 1917, Ezra Pound (1885-1972) wrote a letter, telling: “The theme is roughly the theme of ‘Takasago’”, that is to say, of a shūgen, congratulatory piece written by Zeami. Then, what exactly did he mean by “the theme of ‘Takasago’”? What would come of it in the long epic poem that took him half a century to elaborate? This article — a revised English version of the author’s essay, Ezra Pound e i misteri di Takasago — explores a new Pound’s interpretation of the shūgen alongside the Japanese medieval poetics.
The Meandering Road: Memory, Inheritance, and the Distinctive Voice of European Haiku
Despite the international expansion of haiku as a global poetry genre, comparative studies distinguishing European from North American haiku remain scarce. This article borrows from Roman Jakobson’s theory of the dominant to address this gap, observing foregrounding tendencies in the English-language European haiku published between 2015 and 2025, analyzed in comparison with the North American baseline from the leading journals of the genre. Drawing on Haruo Shirane's distinction between the horizontal and vertical axes of haiku composition, and on Richard Gilbert's taxonomy of disjunctive techniques, the study identifies two main dominants in European haiku: an orientation toward collective history and cultural memory, and an allusive depth rooted in shared literary inheritance, rather than in the phenomenological perception central to the North American framework. Close reading of selected poems is supported by practitioner and institutional discourse from both continents. The findings are offered as a theoretical framework rather than a statistical contribution, designed to provide analytical direction for future empirical studies of international haiku across regional identifications.
The Idea of Communication in Frank O’Hara’s Poetics of Personism
Frank O’Hara’s “Personism: A Manifesto” is central to understand his poetics. This study aims to direct academic attention to the interpretation of this essay, uncovering the idea of communication as the backbone of his poetics and revealing O’Hara’s democratic thought behind his seemingly individualistic writing to address his social significance. In the light of relevant notions from open art and intersubjective philosophy, the study makes a detailed analysis of the essay and also draws to his poems and other articulations as further references. It is demonstrated that by sincerely documenting personal “happenings”, O’Hara aspires to achieve person-to-person interaction through bilateral communicative rationality and thus his poetry functions as micro-public spheres. His Personism offers not only poetic ethics but also life philosophy, advocating egalitarian dialogues while preserving authenticity of individual experience against the manipulation of systems.
Ordering the World through Imagery：Western Metaphysical and Eastern Jin Xuanyan Poetry Responding to Their Crises
From the perspective of cultural poetics, this article employs a typological comparative method to examine how the seventeenth-century Western Metaphysical poetry and the Eastern Jin Xuanyan poetry (东晋玄言诗) diverged in their poetic responses to crises of order and their subsequent reconstruction. The study finds that the two traditions responded to crises of order distinct in nature: the Western Metaphysical poetry confronted a “cognitive disorder,” in which the Scientific Revolution and religious warfare shattered the world-picture into fragments, rendering it unintelligible; the Eastern Jin Xuanyan poetry, by contrast, faced a “value disorder,” in which aristocratic politics and the transience of life suspended the meaning of individual existence. From these distinct crises emerged two fundamentally different poetic paths: the Western Metaphysical poetry, employing conceit and paradox as its instruments, established momentary, intellectually ignited cognitive order through an “intellectual reconstruction”—creating order within paradox and rebuilding meaning out of fragments; the Xuanyan poetry, taking natural imagery as its vehicle, realized a continuously subsisting cosmological order through a “philosophical return to the root”—not to remake the world, but to roam with the Dao. In terms of historical influence, the former followed a pattern of “rupture—oblivion—recall,” while the latter exhibited a pattern of “transformation—permeation—sedimentation,” patterns respectively rooted in the Western progressive view of history characterized by “paradigm revolutions” and the Chinese continuous view of history characterized by “all-embracing inclusiveness.” In cross-cultural transmission, the Western Metaphysical poetry was reimagined by modern Chinese poetics as an “avant-garde methodology,” while Xuanyan poetry was envisioned by Western ecological poetics as a “mirror image of Eastern wisdom,” each reborn through productive misreadings by the “Other.” This article contends that in the face of contemporary compound crises—ecological crisis, the impact of artificial intelligence, and disciplinary fragmentation—the two poetics require deep dialogue and mutual complementarity: we need both the momentary intellectual reconstruction of the Western Metaphysical poetry to break cognitive impasses, and the enduring rooted settlement of the Xuanyan poetry to rebuild our spiritual home. The two, like yin and yang, together constitute a complete poetic wisdom: possessing both the courage to confront disorder and the composure to settle body and mind.
Du Fu has written about different types of artists in his poems. Such poems not only document the life and achievement of the artists but also serve as a mirror of the ups and downs of the poet himself and those of Tang Dynasty. This paper will focus on “Song of a Painting Presented to General Cao Ba” (丹青引赠曹将军霸), “On Seeing a Student of Mistress Gongsun Dance the 'Sword Dance”(观公孙大娘弟子舞剑器行), and “Meeting Li Guinian in Jiangnan” (江南逢李龟年), exploring the correlation between the artists, the poet and the country, how Du Fu’s attitudes towards hardship and pain change with the passage of time as well as how the poet finally reaches transcendence by the time he met Li Guinian.
Chinese Painting in Contrast with Western Painting and Their Mutual Influence Since the Seventeenth Century
Chinese and Western painting represent two entirely different trends in the world history of fine arts. They differ from each other not only in art style but also in the artists’ painting skills. Chinese classic paintings focus on the vivification of a conception but not the true image of the scene or object in the picture. That is to say, the focus is not a physical resemblance but a more refined and spiritual resemblance of what has been painted. As a result, no matter whether they are painted in color or in black and white, the persons, objects or landscapes in the pictures are often unrealistic or even out of proportion and scale. On the other hand, the western classic paintings stress the creation of real and lively images of the objects or people in the picture. And they are often marked with the effect of light and shade and the contrast of color and size, whether in oil or in water color, resulting in a “true to life” style (Shen, 1996, p.277). But these two entirely different paintings have influenced each other in the history of their respective development. Chinese painting and western painting began to have close contact since the seventeenth century. They influenced each other to a certain extent. This essay discusses the difference between Chinese painting and western painting in respect of medium, painting techniques (line, color, shade, perspective, basic training), possibility of correction, subject-matter, philosophy, style and the relationship with the literati. Western influence on Chinese painting since the seventeenth century was limited whereas Chinese influence on western art since the seventeenth century was mainly embodied in the Rococo art.
The Construction of “the Spirit of the Place” in Wordsworth’s Travel Poems Memorials of a Tour in Italy
Despite his established identity as a “Lake Poet”, William Wordsworth travelled constantly throughout his life both within Britain and abroad. Memorials of a Tour in Italy, 1837 , which records Wordsworth’s tour in Italy in 1837, was first published in 1842 as a part of Poems, Chiefly of Early and Late Years. Adopting a perspective from literary geography, this paper examines how Wordsworth experienced and represented Italy in his later years, with particular attention to the construction of “the spirit of the place” in his travel poetry. It begins by tracing the pre-existing cultural image of Italy within the British context prior to his journey, and then analyzes how the poet transcends immediate sensory perceptions of physical space, integrating personal memory, historical consciousness, and ethical reflection into his poetic composition, thereby constructing a multilayered poetic place. This study argues that both travel and poetry function as modes of spiritual and intellectual navigation for the later Wordsworth. Memorials is not merely a record of travel, but a profound meditation on how human beings dwell in place and how place shapes human beings through poetic imagination and reflection.
Travel, Nature, and Life Consciousness: On Three Poems by Guofang Zhu
This article examines three poems written by Guofang Zhu during his travels at the age of twenty-six: In Sertar, Hokkaido, and Lake Baikal. Focusing on geographical landscapes, existential consciousness, and emotional experience, it explores how the poems employ the religious imagery of Sertar, the tranquil scenery of Hokkaido, and the primal natural world of Lake Baikal. Together, the poems trace the poet’s movement from reflections on death, love, and time toward an affirmation of present life and nature’s essential truth. Through concise language, rich natural imagery, and fairy-tale-like imagination, Zhu creates a poetic space of resonance between humanity and nature, revealing a spiritual quest and existential meditation informed by the Chinese ideal of the unity of Heaven and humanity.
Meanders of Haiku: Voices from Six Continents
Edited and introduced by Goran Gatalica, Meanders of Haiku: Voices from Six Continents brings together haiku by Dan C. Iulian, Indra Neil Mekala, Taofeek Ayeyemi, Vanessa Proctor, Rosa Clement, and Julie Schwerin. Representing Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, South America, and North America, the poets explore nature, memory, emotion, migration, seasonal change, and moments of quiet revelation. The column highlights both the cultural diversity of contemporary haiku and the form’s enduring capacity to cross linguistic and geographical boundaries through concise observation and expansive resonance.
J. H. Prynne and China: Over Forty Years of Academic Engagement and Poetic Dialogue
Jeremy H. Prynne, the preeminent British poet and leading figure of the Cambridge School of Poetry, enjoys an extensive body of work with far-reaching influence, and has maintained frequent exchanges with China’s academic and poetic circles. As a contemporary representative of the Cambridge School, Prynne has exerted a profound impact on China’s foreign language academia, particularly scholars engaged in th research on British. Besides delivering lectures at universities in Jiangsu, Guangdong, Hunan and other provinces, Prynne has kept extensive connections with avant-garde poets and helped promote Chinese avant-garde poetry onto the global stage. With a deep personal affinity for China, Prynne’s four decades of academic engagement and poetic dialogue here exemplify his acute insight and profound erudition as a distinguished poet and literary critic, leaving a pivotal imprint on the research and teaching of British and American literature in the country.
A Letter: In Memory of Jeremy Prynne, and a Case Study of True Friendship Between China and the West
This commemorative essay serves a dual purpose: it pays heartfelt tribute to the distinguished British experimental poet Jeremy Prynne and records the long-term sincere cross-cultural friendship between the author and Prynne, which stands as a typical case of genuine communication between Chinese and Western intellectuals. Recounting over two decades of interactions starting from 2001, the text chronicles their weekly academic discussions at Cambridge, Prynne’s visiting scholar experience at Guangzhou University, more than a thousand exchanged emails, and multiple supportive gestures Prynne offered the author—including a three-and-a-half-page recommendation letter, full backing for the memorial of Chinese poet Xu Zhimo at King’s College, and his final consent to act as an advisor for the Chinese and European Association for Poetry and Poetics (CEAP) while seriously ill in bed. Beyond personal reminiscence, the essay reflects on a core obstacle to Sino-Western communication: insufficient literary reading and inadequate cultural immersion among language learners on both sides, which frequently trigger misunderstandings. To address this barrier, the author introduces his over-ten-year Modern English and Culture Education Program (MECEP), a reading-oriented teaching model proven effective in fostering cross-cultural linguistic and cultural competence. Rooted in the belief of shared humanity across civilizations, the author also shares his optimistic life outlook shaped by Prynne’s sober reminders of global evils, and defines his professional mission as an English educator to bridge China and the world through literary exchange. This memoir illustrates how sustained literary dialogue can transcend national divisions and build lasting mutual trust.
Two Letters from Jeremy Halvard Prynne to All Members of the English Poetry Studies Institute
This publication presents two letters written by Jeremy Halvard Prynne to members of the English Poetry Studies Institute (EPSI), School of Foreign Languages, Sun Yat-sen University. The first letter conveys greetings to the “Tribe of Epsians,” celebrates Professor Ou Hong’s birthday, and reflects on the founding spirit, scholarly community, and enduring fellowship of EPSI. The second recalls Prynne’s teaching and academic exchanges in Guangzhou, his support for individual research projects, and his sustained efforts to develop the EPSI Library through the donation and acquisition of books and research materials. Together, the letters document Prynne’s long-standing mentorship, generosity, and close intellectual and personal ties with EPSI and its members.
Letter of Tribute from English Poetry Studies Institute, School of Foreign Languages, Sun Yat-sen University
This letter of tribute, issued by the English Poetry Studies Institute (EPSI), School of Foreign Languages, Sun Yat-sen University, mourns the passing of Jeremy Prynne and reflects on his decades-long association with the Institute. It highlights his roles as teacher, academic advisor, mentor, Guest Professor, and supporter of English poetry studies in China, including his donation of 811 volumes to EPSI. The letter also expresses the Institute’s condolences to his family and commemorates his enduring influence as a poet, critic, educator, and friend.
“Escape” is a poem of visceral immediacy and emotional intensity. Xiao Yi conveys the tension of fleeing, the pull of home, and the bodily experience of cold and displacement. The English version mirrors the Chinese original’s rhythm, imagery, and emotional force, capturing the urgent, almost cinematic pacing. The poem’s vivid symbols—red peach blossoms, crimson hair, starry nights—are highly charged and tactile in both languages. This bilingual presentation demonstrates the poet’s ability to retain emotional resonance across languages, making the work accessible yet deeply affecting in either version.
“Tianjin Diary” demonstrates Xiao Yi’s extraordinary skill in constructing bilingual poetic landscapes. Both the English and Chinese versions capture a rich urban and emotional panorama, from city streets and rivers to domestic life, blending memory, observation, and reflection. The English version preserves the lyrical precision, rhythm, and narrative flow, while the Chinese original maintains its subtle nuances and local textures. The poem excels at transforming everyday objects into vessels of nostalgia and contemplation. This dual presentation highlights the poet’s ability to bridge linguistic and cultural sensibilities, making the poem vivid, immersive, and emotionally resonant.
Wentao Zeng’s translation of “To Celia” is an impressive and faithful adaptation that captures both the lyrical beauty and emotional subtleties of Ben Jonson’s original. The translator skillfully preserves the romantic intimacy and delicate imagery, conveying the longing and admiration in a way that resonates in Chinese. The Chinese version maintains the musicality and rhythm of the English original, while carefully rendering idiomatic expressions into elegant, natural phrasing. Notably, elements such as the “rosy wreath” and “kiss in the cup” are translated with sensitivity to both literal and emotional meaning, allowing Chinese readers to experience the imagery vividly. This translation exemplifies a balanced approach: it honors the structure and tone of the original poem while adapting it into fluent, poetic Chinese. The result is a version that is both readable and aesthetically pleasing, demonstrating the translator’s skill in bridging cultural and linguistic contexts without losing the charm of the original.
Poetry Narration and Local Identity: A Study of the Construction of “Cultural IP” in Heyuan Hakka Homestays
Against the backdrop of digital media and policy-driven rural tourism, this study examines how Hakka homestays in the Heyuan region of Guangdong Province can transition from mere “space provision” to the construction of a poetry-narrative-based cultural IP, thereby fostering tourists’ sense of place identity. Grounded in the intersection of poetic narration, cultural heritage, and semiotic design, the research adopts a case study approach, focusing on: (1) how local symbols and emotions in poetry are transformed into narrative resources; (2) how these resources are narrativized in homestay spaces, experiences, and discourses; and (3) how such narrative-driven IP influences tourists’ place perception, emotional attachment, and sense of belonging. A three-stage model of “narrative resource extraction–narrative translation–identity generation” is proposed, showing that deep narrative integration is more effective than symbolic collage in building sustainable local identity. Theoretically, it extends poetic narration into a narratological framework for tourism and cultural IP construction. Practically, it proposes a “narrative-first” development model for homestays, offering strategic insights for sustainable cultural tourism.
Heat, Flight, and Density: Xu Jiajia’s Early Poetics of Sensation, Freedom, and Associative Thought
This essay introduces and critically frames the early poetic works of Xu Jiajia (徐嘉佳), a young Chinese poet born in 2014. Rather than approaching her writing through the lens of age, pedagogy, or novelty, the essay reads her poems as serious lyric experiments characterized by associative thinking, sensory density, and intuitive structural intelligence. Through close readings of three short poems—“Summer vs Steak”, “Epiphany”, and “Dense”—presented in bilingual Chinese–English form, the column examines how Xu’s work mobilizes contrast, repetition, and metaphor to construct a distinctive poetic logic rooted in sensation rather than explanation. Her poems demonstrate an instinctive grasp of complementarity, freedom, and intensity, revealing a mode of lyric cognition often inaccessible to adult poetic language. Positioned within Verse Version’s commitment to discovering emerging poetic voices across cultures and ages, this essay argues that Xu Jiajia’s work should be read not as “children’s poetry,” but as early-stage lyric intelligence—poetry that reminds us how imagination precedes doctrine, and how genuine poetic force often appears first as heat, flight, and density.
Night Jasmine and the Ethics of Attention: Goran Gatalica’s Poetics Between Science and Silence
This extended critical feature examines the poetry of Croatian poet Goran Gatalica as a distinctive instance of contemporary minimalist poetics situated at the intersection of scientific discipline, ethical attention, and cross-cultural haiku practice. Drawing on his formal training in physics, chemistry, and engineering, Gatalica develops a poetics characterized by precision, restraint, and an ethics of observation that resists rhetorical excess. Through close theoretical positioning and contextual reading, this essay argues that Gatalica’s work exemplifies an international lyric grounded not in abstraction or exoticism, but in attentive engagement with silence, locality, and empirical reality. Structured in three parts, the study moves from intellectual biography and theoretical framing, to a curated bilingual haiku corpus with commentary, and finally to a book-length reading of Night Jasmine as a peace-oriented poetics of ethical minimalism. Rather than treating haiku as a formal exercise, the essay situates it as an ethical compression of experience, aligning poetic practice with scientific humility and moral restraint. In doing so, the feature positions Gatalica’s work within a living global network of contemporary haiku and minimalist poetry, while articulating its relevance to current debates on attention, silence, and responsibility in lyric writing.
Wind, Tree, Sea: Guo Jie’s Lyric Ethics of Time, Nature, and Inner Distance
This essay examines the lyric poetry of Guo Jie (郭杰)—a prominent Chinese poet and scholar—through the lens of ethical attention, temporal consciousness, and non-instrumental engagement with nature. Situating his work at the intersection of scholarship and lyric creation, the essay argues that Guo Jie exemplifies a mature form of the contemporary “scholar–poet,” whose poetry is shaped by historical patience rather than academic display. Through close reading of three representative poems—“The Wind, at Times, Is Lonely”, “Ode to an Ancient Tree”, and “My Heart Has Flown to the Sea”—presented in bilingual Chinese–English form, the essay explores how wind, tree, and sea function not as metaphors subordinated to human emotion, but as ethical interlocutors that resist possession and demand attentiveness. Time in these poems operates as an ethical medium, emphasizing endurance, waiting, and inward distance over resolution or climax. By foregrounding listening over statement and restraint over expressiveness, Guo Jie’s poetry offers a quiet corrective to both academic over-explanation and lyric excess. This essay positions his work within contemporary Chinese poetry while situating it in dialogue with international concerns related to ecological lyricism, ethical minimalism, and the responsibilities of poetic attention.
The Transcendentalist Tradition in Robert Bly’s Poetics
The academia has traced the cultural roots of the poetics of Robert Bly, a leading figure of the American “Deep Image” school, to foreign sources, such as European Surrealism, psychological unconscious theories, European mysticism, and Chinese Daoist philosophy. However, an examination of Bly’s own poetics reveals his emphasis on nativist consciousness and solitude, highlighting intricate connections with transcendentalism—a cornerstone of American indigenous culture. This discovery will contribute to a deeper understanding of Bly's poetic spirit and its place within modern and contemporary American poetry.
The Growth of Vegetal Perception in “The Weed”: The Emergence of Plant Subjectivity in Elizabeth Bishop’s Poetry
Elizabeth Bishop’s poetry abounds with vegetal imagery. She not only depicts the plants’ forms and growth but also endows them with perception, emotion and movement, transforming them into subjects with consciousness and thought. Grounded in the theoretical framework of “phytocriticism”, this study takes “The Weed” as the central text to explore how Bishop, through her delicate portrayal of vegetal perception and movement, constructs an “intersubjective relationship” between human beings and plants. The weed that grows from the human body symbolizes the mutual penetration of life and language, revealing a non-anthropocentric logic of perception and an awareness of ecological balance. In this transformation, plants cease to be passive objects of observation and become subjects capable of engaging in an equal dialogue with the poet. This study will also draw on other poems such as “Florida” and “The Moose” to reveal how Bishop further develops her vegetal narrativity and ecological vision of coexistence. Bishop’s vegetal poetics turns the sensibility of plants into a poetic mode of perception. Within the intertwining of language, life and consciousness, her poetry accomplishes a transition from the representation of nature to an ecology of coexistence.
The Healing Poetics of Ted Hughes: From a Jungian Perspective
This paper explores Ted Hughes’s oeuvre through the lens of C. G. Jung’s analytical psychology, arguing that his poetry enacts a lifelong process of psychic and ecological healing. By tracing Hughes’s career from his early confrontation with shadow energies in The Hawk in the Rain (1957) and Lupercal (1960), through the descent into chaos in Crow (1970) and Cave Birds (1978), to the landscapes of renewal in Remains of Elmet (1979) and River (1983), the study demonstrates how his work mirrors the Jungian stages of individuation. His epilogues, Birthday Letters (1998) and Howls & Whispers (1998), are read as culminating attempts of reconciliation, where personal grief is transformed into archetypal experience. The core argument is the therapeutic role of myth, archetypes, and natural imagery in Hughes’s works, which mediate between the conscious ego and unconscious forces, facilitating a psychic balance. Ultimately, the paper concludes that Hughes’s poetics suggests a healing practice of transformation, offering not final resolution but an ongoing dialogue with shadow, nature, and memory. His work thus affirms the role of poetry as a medium of psychological renewal and ecological consciousness in the modern age.
The manifesto, distilled from the poetic practice and scholarly reflections within the Selected Poems of Ou Zhuang and centered on the spirit of Ou Hong’s “The Bastard Child of Poetry”, formally articulates the poetic principles and aspirations of the Lige School. Presented here as an appendix, it serves as both a conclusion to this section and an opening onto a broader poetic path, while also constituting a foundational theoretical document of the movement and being available as a standalone text for scholarly reference.
Hong: Poetry, Mentorship, and the Emergence of the Lige School of Poetry
This column documents and critically examines the emergence of the Lige School of Poetry (离格学派), a contemporary Chinese bilingual scholar–poet community formed under the long-term mentorship of Professor Ou Hong (区鉷). Combining a collaboratively composed poem, "Hong", written on the occasion of Ou Hong’s eightieth birthday, with a stage-based evaluative report, the column explores how poetic creation, theoretical innovation, bilingual practice, and international publishing intersect within a living intellectual formation. The poetic section foregrounds the semantic and symbolic significance of the Chinese character 鉷 (Hong)—the trigger mechanism of a crossbow—as a metaphor for mentorship, restraint, and calibrated release and deviation from norms of traditional poetry. The evaluative section employs AI-assisted analytical tools in a limited and transparent manner to synthesize structural features and nomenclature, resulting in the designation “Lige School of Poetry.” Rather than replacing human judgment, AI functions as a methodological aid to reduce internal bias in assessing an active poetic community. By situating the Lige School within both domestic academic structures and global poetic discourse, this column offers a rare real-time case study of how contemporary Chinese poet-scholars negotiate local cultural consciousness and international literary engagement. The significance of the Lige School lies not only in its poetic and scholarly output, but in the intellectual model it provides for sustaining bilingual, theory-informed poetic practice in a globalized literary environment.