Interview with Hung Hung
Hung Hung is the pen name of Yen Hung-ya. Born in 1964, he is a graduate of the National Institute of Arts, Theatre Department, and has, at one time or another, been an award-winning poet and author of poetry, short fiction, intimate essays and theatre criticism, chief editor of Performing Arts Review and The Modernist Poetry (the leading publications in their respective fields in Taiwan), artistic and stage director of Stalker Theatre Group, which he founded in 1994, co-author of the Edward Yang's films, A Brighter Summer Day (1991), and director of more than twenty plays, four operas, and three films: The Love of Three Oranges, The Human Comedy, and A Garden in the Sky. He has served as curator of the Taipei Poetry Festival since 2004. He maintains a blog at http://blog.roodo.com/hhung.
Could you share some information about your personal background?
I was born in Tainan. When I was 8 years old, my family moved to Taoyuan, which is just south of Taipei.
As children, my older brother and I used to memorize poems from 300 Poems from the T'ang Dynasty – this is a popular book in Chinese families. We would compete to see who could memorize the most poems the fastest.
In the 7th grade, I studied with Ms. Sun Mu Yin, a literature teacher at Taoyuan Junior High School. Ms. Sun loved contemporary Chinese poetry and assigned readings outside of the standard textbooks. I started to write free verse poems at this time. Teachers in Taiwan don't typically encourage students to write creatively, but Ms. Sun was unique in encouraging creative expression. She introduced Herman Hesse's writings to me – his book Damian had a huge influence on my thinking.
Who else are your literary influences?
In the beginning, I was influenced by Taiwanese poets like Luo Chin, who wrote quite differently from other Chinese poets – more like Wallace Stevens. Later, I discovered that Luo Chin had been influenced by Stevens. He wrote poems on the martial arts and heroic themes appealing to an adolescent boy. And his rhythms were quite good.
Later, I read many different poets. Jacques Prevert – he influenced both Hsia Yu and me. We loved his conversational tone. Through this style, I found that everything could be written into poems and it could still be very natural and poetic. In more recent times, I've enjoyed the work of Iraqi poet Saadi Youssef. I read the poems in English and translate them into Chinese.
Theater has also been important to my writing. I studied playwriting and directing in college, so I read a lot of plays. Contemporary playwrights, like Beckett, Pasolini, and Sarah Kane, impress me –– how they focus their thoughts into sequences and action.
Film has also had a big influence on me – but I have been trained by film to express thoughts visually. So many of my readers say when they read my poems that they can see characters, pictures – but this is not intentional. This is the influence of film on my poetry.
Can you talk more about the impact of studying theatre and other disciplines upon your aesthetic development?
I studied theater in the National Institute of Arts and was a member of the Institute's first graduating class in theater arts.
When I was 17, I studied dance with the Cloud Gate Dance Company which offers classes in the community. I had seen performances by Cloud Gate and New York choreographer Murray Louis. Louis performed in Taipei, and I felt so excited about his work. I didn't understand the abstract nature of his work, but I was deeply moved. At that time, I read a lot of books, but the world that Louis created was beyond language. I wanted to understand what that was, so I studied dance to learn from an experiential point of view. After I learned dance, I learned to love theater. Theater became the bridge between dance and literature.
I was very happy at the Institute – the program lasted five years. After the Institute, I started writing and in 1994, I founded the Stalker Theater Company which was named after Tarkovsky's film. The company closed after its 10th anniversary – I was doing more work in film at that time and needed to focus.
When I entered the Institute, I didn't really know what theater was about. But I learned that the stage is a mirror for all of human experience. Playwrights provide the best model for writing. When directing actors, I think hundreds of times about every single line. It is a very good exercise in the study of language. Through theater, I learned that everyday language has its own poetic intensity. From then on, I didn't like lyric poetry anymore, which seemed too scholarly, too obscure.
Can you identify the point at which you considered yourself to be a poet? To what degree could you consider poetry to be a part of your everyday life?
Poetry is not always a part of my everyday life. Sometimes in a three-month period, I may write three poems a day. But for one or two years, I may write nothing. When I am inspired, I choose a form to work in – maybe I write a film script, or sometimes I write a poem. Two years ago, I made a documentary about elementary-school life –how children grow up. The project critiqued the educational system and how schools serve parents instead of children. I observed children and shot footage at a school for six months. After finishing the documentary, I wrote many poems about children and their circumstances.
Do you write in English or Chinese? Do you translate your own work into English either by yourself or collaboratively?
I write in Chinese only. Steve Bradbury translates my poems, but only the ones that he loves very much, and he translates them in his own way. But I think maybe this is the best way to translate. If he makes a big change from the original, he asks me before doing so. Steve always sends all the originals for proofing before publishing. Tsui-hua Huang, a close friend, has also worked with me on translating my poems. Occasionally, I suggest certain words, but I am not a good translator. Zona Tsou, a student of Steve, has also translated my work.
How do you either directly or indirectly address the issue of identity in your work?
In different poems, I have different positions – some of the poems are political. I may express strong opinions and develop a unique character, but in many other poems, I want to disappear in the poem. I want readers to think that anyone could have written these poems.
Do politics inform your work?
Most of my poems are related to my everyday life. I like to write about ordinary experience, like Wallace Stevens. But more and more, I write poems that are political – I want to address very clear opinions and attitudes about what's happening in the world –– not just what affects me directly, but the whole world. When I read about Sharon withdrawing from Gaza, I wrote a poem inspired by that event. There's a leper colony here in Taipei Country called Losheng [“Joyful Living”] where residents have lived for over 70 years. The government wants to relocate the building so that they can store MRT equipment. I volunteer at the home every month, and after being involved with the community, I wrote the poem “Joyful Living.”
In your poem “The World”, you write about a world in which everyone can speak “English.” Why English and not Chinese, your native language?
In contemporary times, people around the world watch films from Hollywood. When we watch film, the ideology of reality is controlled by Hollywood movies. Everyone speaks English in these movies – even in Memoirs of a Geisha. The poem is about how reality is controlled by the English-speaking world.
Can you tell me about your current projects?
I've finished working on a fantasy/science-fiction film project called “The Wall Passer.” It's about a teenage boy who finds a magic stone that takes him to an alternative universe where he falls in love with the girl who rescues him from death, and ultimately discovers that he is a figment of her imagination.
We have finished shooting and the film will be finished this Spring.
It seems common in Taiwan for poets to be involved in projects across disciplines – what are your thoughts on specializing vs. working across a range of genres?
When you're a child, you're interested in many things, but through education you narrow your focus to know only one thing. I have tried to learn many different kinds of art. They are different tools that allow me to do more things.
Tell me about your work with the Taipei Poetry Festival. What is this event, who does it showcase, and how often does it happen?
The Office of Cultural Affairs has sponsored a poetry festival for the last five or six years. I have curated the festival for the past three years. In 2004, the festival featured Taiwanese poets only. Last year, we invited foreign poets. Now it's grown into an international poetry festival. I wanted to curate the festival to be able to combine poetry with theater, dance, and film. I love poetry, and I don't see many people who like poetry here. I wanted to attract different kinds of audiences. I invited a jazz band to perform poetry while an actor read poetry. We used Peking Opera as the backdrop to read ancient poems against contemporary music.
In 2005, we invited many poets from the Middle East. Taiwanese readers are not very familiar with international literature, as it's difficult to find foreign poetry in translation here. The festival introduced different poetic traditions to the public. I invited poets from Iraq, Kurdistan, Palestine, Israel, Turkey, Slovakia and Iceland. I also organized a small film festival within the poetry festival to screen films from the Middle East.
The international poetry conference is only a small part of the festival – we also sent poets to schools to give lectures and workshops. We organized poetry readings with emerging poets to introduce their work to the community.
This year the Taipei Poetry Festival will take place from October 28 through November 11. The festival theme this year is “Images of the world, songs from the soul.” So far, we have poets from Chechnya and Basque confirmed for the program. I also invited Paco Ibanez to perform Spanish poetry. A retrospective on the work of French director Pierre Coulibouf will be featured as part of our Poetry in Motion program. We will also sponsor a song composition contest that will be open to local bands that work with setting poems to music.
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