Chapter 19: Surrealistic Expression Techniques

Section 1: Surrealistic Imagination

The "surrealistic expression techniques" discussed in this chapter are not based on the theoretical foundation of Surrealism (Surréalisme), particularly not on its methods such as collage and automatic writing. While these are indeed key techniques promoted by the Surrealist movement, they are not the focus of this discussion.

Instead, the term "surrealistic expression techniques" as defined here stems from the highest form of associative activity—creative imagination: a psychological act that independently generates novel, unique, and strange images by creatively synthesizing representations stored in memory, without relying on others’ descriptions. Through the combination of imagery, poets present unusual scenes that transcend conventional aesthetic experience, thereby expressing a personal and distinctive aesthetic vision.

This is similar to the cinematic technique of montage: images from different times and places are edited together organically according to the creator’s vision, producing effects such as continuity (narrative axis), contrast, association, juxtaposition, and suspense. These ultimately form a work with artistic expression and aesthetic value, enabling the viewer or reader to participate, comprehend, and be stirred by their imagination and aesthetic sense.

Section 2: Types of Surrealistic Expression Techniques

New poetry texts often exhibit many techniques that cannot be strictly defined using conventional rhetorical devices. For example:

1. Collage cannot be adequately explained using tropes such as cataloging or ornamentation.

2. Montage editing cannot be interpreted solely through devices like showing, hyperbole, or synesthesia.

Both collage and montage transcend traditional sentence-based rhetoric. In this chapter, we will explore three main types of surrealistic expression techniques: transformative combinations, montage editing, and surrealistic performances.

I. Transformative Combinations

"Transformative combinations" refer to the intentional combination of imagery from different dimensions—such as time, space, distance, sound, light, etc.—to produce bizarre yet aesthetically pleasing deformed images that convey a sense of the “irrational yet marvelous.”

In Chapter 15 of my previous work (Imagery Deformation: Hyperbole), I discussed “transformative hyperbole” as a way to explain the combinations of dissimilar images that transcend ordinary aesthetic experience. For example:

"Seven Degrees of Summer in the Mountains: The Insomniac Dog" / Yu Kwang-chung
Often, after the last bus has passed

The vastness of heaven and earth shrinks to
Just a mile, maybe less,

Where in the distance, a dog barks—three barks, two—

Only the lamp understands

At this hour, the white-haired man beneath the lamp

Is also an insomniac dog

But he keeps watch over a different night

And barks at a different shadow

Listen from farther away—

Say, a hundred years away—

And you’ll hear it,

Clear

As day

In these lines, the poet first uses "spatial reduction hyperbole": “The vastness of heaven and earth shrinks to / just a mile or so,” compressing the vastness of the world down to the sound of a few barks—an impossible transformation, thus a form of “transformative hyperbole.” This includes elements of synesthesia or sensory substitution, as spatial scale is transformed into sound.

Later, he writes: “Listen from farther away—say, a hundred years away—and you’ll hear it, clear as day.” Here, time (a hundred years) is used as a unit to measure distance, forming an imaginative image where base and decoration come from different conceptual domains—again a case of transformative hyperbole.

"Listening to the Night in the Deep Mountains" / Yu Kwang-chung
The deeper the mountain, the longer the night

All sounds seem lost in dream

What could be more listenable
Than perfect stillness?

Even the longest, most hectic history
Must have had this one moment
Of silence beyond argument

But the wind—what about the wind, you ask?

The wind? That’s time
Passing through
Causing, here and there,
Just the faintest echo

Here, the line “The wind? That’s time passing through” offers not a mere metaphor or synesthetic link, but a transformation of abstract time into a material cause that stirs echoes. It’s a transformative combination of imagery—a surrealistic blend.

II. Montage Editing

Montage editing liberates a poem from linear constraints of time and space, linking otherwise unrelated images to create unexpected effects. In modern Taiwanese poetry, Lo Fu is one of the most prominent poets adept at this technique.

"The Ginger Lily of Yesterday" / Lo Fu
When I first picked you
The leaves and stems leapt at me
Bare in white
With the body scent of mint

If there were a third shore
Beyond the riverbanks
My outstretched arm would be it

All lost songs cannot be replaced by echoes
At the edge of water
You habitually bent down
Piecing together the reflection
Of yesterday
Now scattered by ripples

The imaginary “third shore” created by the speaker’s outstretched arm is a highly original image. And “yesterday’s reflection now scattered by ripples”—which she tries to piece together—evokes a deep sense of attachment and emotional persistence. The montage here juxtaposes memory, time, reflection, and physical gesture into a surreal poetic tableau.

"Ghost Woman (II)" / Lo Fu
She
Was raised by a rope
Into a sorrowful
Yet exquisitely beautiful tale from Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio

Following the sound of a flute
Any window might hold
Her heartless scholar
Off to take the imperial exam

The wind arrives in silence
She slips in
To the just-closed stitched-bound book

A woman who hanged herself—an image of tragedy—suddenly becomes a character in a sorrowful, beautiful tale from Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, thus shifting the emotional tone from tragic to elegiac. Then the lines “she slips into the just-closed stitched-bound book” evoke a fantastical visual, almost like a 3D special effect. This image is not explainable through hyperbole but is a textbook example of montage editing in poetry.

III. Surrealistic Performance

The technique of surrealistic performance inherently contains a sense of illogical absurdity—much like a magician’s sleight of hand. Yet these absurd images are still accepted by readers’ aesthetic sensibilities. Why? Because they offer a kind of delightful subtext—despite being “irrational and illogical,” they remain “witty and fascinating.”

"Two Poems on West Lake: Bai Causeway" / Lo Fu
Was Bai Juyi a Romantic?
That remains to be studied.
But what is certain is that overnight,
He painted West Lake
With an eyebrow that made hearts race.

Then he hung birdsong, long and short,
All over the willows of four seasons—
Chirping for over a thousand years
Just to wake me
From a dream.

Breakfast: a window full of clouds,
With a thermos of bell-sounds brewed
In Hupao spring water.
I was full to the point of belching.

But strolling to the causeway
I had another meal—
The autumn wind leftover by the lotus leaves.

The line “chirping for over a thousand years just to wake me from a dream” employs hyperbole by stretching time. Then we encounter the whimsical lines “breakfast: a window full of clouds / with a thermos of bell-sounds brewed / full to the point of belching / but strolling to the causeway / I had another meal / the autumn wind leftover by the lotus leaves.” Here, the speaker—possibly the Bai Causeway itself—is awakened after a thousand years. Though the image combinations are clearly irrational, readers still delight in and embrace this kind of playful surrealism.

"Afternoon of the Water Hyacinths" / Lo Fu
Afternoon. In the pond,
Clusters of pregnant water hyacinths.

This summer is terribly lonely—
If there must be birth,
Then birth a pond full of frogs.

Alas, the problem is:
We are only bloated with air.

That “pregnant water hyacinths give birth to frogs” is a nonsensical and impossible sequence—not exaggeration of an object, but a leap into surreal logic. Yet readers don’t reject it; on the contrary, they find it intriguingly imaginative.

"No Rain" / Lo Fu
Long has it stayed sunny—no rain.
This heart has long since cracked.
If you are the tear that forms but never falls,
How I long
To become the fish in your eye.

The line “I am the fish swimming in your tear” is undeniably surreal, yet this surreal image conveys deep emotion and aesthetic beauty. Readers need not rationalize it; they accept it as sensuous and poetic.

"Following the Rain Sound into the Mountains Without Seeing Rain"
I opened an oil-paper umbrella
Singing of the sour March plums.
Among all the mountains,
I was the only straw sandal.

Woodpecker—empty
Echo—hollow
A tree spirals upward
In the ache of pecking.

Into the mountains—no rain.
The umbrella circles a mossy stone
Where sits a man with his head in his hands,
Watching cigarette butts flick into ash.

Down the mountain—still no rain.
Three bitter pine nuts
Roll along the signposts toward my feet.
I reach out to grab them—
Only to catch
A handful of birdsong.

The moment “three bitter pine nuts / roll to my feet / I reach out / and catch a handful of birdsong” feels like a magic trick. It defies logic, yet its creativity and surprise bring delight—a hallmark of surreal performance.

"Peeling a Pear at Midnight" / Lo Fu
Cold, and thirsty,
I gaze silently
At the tea table at midnight—
A Korean pear.

Truly it is
A pear, cold to the touch,
Gleaming with a bronze-yellow skin.

One slice—and in its chest
Lies hidden
A deep, deep well.

Trembling,
I lift a slice
Of white, guiltless pear flesh
Between thumb and forefinger.

The knife drops.
I bend down to retrieve it.
Ah! Scattered across the floor
Is my own bronze-colored skin.

In this poem, Lo Fu blends montage editing with surrealistic performance. The image “a deep well hidden in the chest of a pear” is a juxtaposition of two unrelated scenes, achieved through montage. Then, “Ah! scattered across the floor / is my own bronze-colored skin”—the skin of the pear becomes, through subjective illusion, the speaker’s own skin. If seen cinematically, this would not only be a suspenseful montage cut, but also a magician’s sleight of hand—a surreal transformation.

Conclusion

Transformative combinations, montage editing, and surrealistic performance—these three types of surrealistic expression techniques in modern poetry can produce stunning visual effects, offering readers a refreshing and imaginative aesthetic experience.

In truth, if modern poets are willing to invest effort into rhetorical refinement and the honing of their creative language, then incorporate these three surreal techniques appropriately, I have every reason to believe their poems will not only captivate readers but also evoke astonishment.

Because by then, you will have trained yourself to become—
a language magician with endless tricks.