As an event of "Columbia Beijing Summer" Arts series, the session was successfully held on July 7, in Columbia Global Centers | Beijing. SHANG Wei, Du Family Professor of Chinese Culture at Columbia University; ZHAI Yongming, an award-winning Chinese female poet; and LENG Shuang, Associate Professor of School of Literature Journalism and Communication, Minzu University of China attended the event.
During the session, Poet Zhai Yongming talked about her work Sui Huang Gong Wang You Fu Chun Shan, saying that “I like passing through time as I write. In one scene, I revisit the past, and in another, I come back to the present. Sole nostalgia is not enough. I also want to reflect on the current reality. ”
“Our generation of poets is more relaxed than the generation in the May Fourth Period. Poets at that time should distinguish themselves from the tradition, writing poems without rhymes. Since I started writing poems in the 1980s, I didn’t avoid rhymes, although they shouldn’t sound like doggerel. I must be cautious about rhymes for they should be based on inner connections between sounds of words and the emotion to be expressed.”