An Introduction to the Poetry of Wu Sheng, a Taiwanese Rural Poet

By Chen Qingyang

“The Road”

Ever since the city’s roads, following the telephone poles—

the city’s spies sent out to probe—

have extended one by one into my hometown,

boldly flaunting their luxury,

the roads of my hometown have gradually taken on a new sheen.

Ever since the roads of my hometown have gradually taken on a new sheen,

the clamor of machines, rushing noisily past,

has gradually dimmed

the tranquil moonlight and starlight of my hometown.

Ever since the tranquil moonlight and starlight of my hometown

have gradually faded,

the leisurely steps of the people of my hometown

have all been surrendered to little television sets.

Yet a road is still a road.

Whether muddy or desolate,

with each step forward, how many rough patches lie beneath our feet?

A road is still a road, and still—

leads to my hometown’s public cemetery.

“The Burden”

After work, evening falls.

Sometimes I stop to gaze at the brilliant sunset clouds,

but I no longer linger,

because your little faces, lifted toward Dad,

reveal even greater expectations.

After overtime, night has fallen.

Sometimes I stop to gaze at the brilliant starry sky,

but I no longer lose myself in its splendor,

because your sleeping little faces

are more enchanting than the stars.

Day after day, Dad travels back and forth to work,

like a spinning top hurled with all its force from your hands,

circling round and round you.

All of Dad’s passionate ambition

gradually transforms into an enduring, tender affection,

delicate and deep.

Just as Grandpa and Grandma

wove a lifetime of enduring, tender care

for Dad.

My children! Dad has no complaints at all,

because this is, in life,

the heaviest

and sweetest burden of all.

“Dad Is Certain”

Because your bodies are covered in mud,

they actually say you are dirty.

Because you do not know how to say “bye-bye,”

they actually say you are stupid.

Because you wear coarse cloth clothes and go barefoot,

they actually say you are uncultured.

Because you do not like to show off,

and are not skilled at using fancy words,

they actually say you lack self-confidence.

My children! No matter what they say,

Dad is certain that you are the cleanest of children.

Dad is certain that the depth of your gaze is the most moving.

Dad is certain that your simple clothes are the most beautiful.

And you must hold firmly to

a sense of dignity that has nothing to do with inferiority or arrogance.

“A Map of Sweet Potatoes”

From Grandpa’s rough hands,

just as Grandpa had received it from Great-Grandpa,

Dad silently took up the hard, sturdy hoe.

Hoeing and hoeing! Thousands upon thousands of strokes,

he carved this map of sweet potatoes

into the deep, rich soil.

From Grandpa’s stone-hard shoulders,

just as Grandpa had received it from Great-Grandpa,

Dad silently took up the resilient carrying pole.

Carrying and carrying! Load after countless load,

he shouldered this map of sweet potatoes,

with all its sorrows and glories.

From Grandpa’s taciturn mouth,

just as Grandpa had received it from Great-Grandpa,

Dad silently passed down the admonition to endure hardship and remain content with one’s lot.

Speaking and speaking! Thousands upon thousands of words,

he recorded this map of sweet potatoes,

its history of endless adversity.

Although some people are unwilling to speak of it,

and even hasten to sever

their blood ties to this map,

my children, do not forget

the hardships Dad endured,

following Grandpa’s heavy, clumsy footsteps,

one step at a time.

“Growing Up”

Children who grow up quietly

in an environment without applause

will not, when they are older, resort to every means to grab the spotlight

or be unable to bear being ignored.

Children who grow up working hard

in an environment without toys

will not, when they are older, treat other people

as their own toys.

Children who grow up like wild trees

in an environment without embellishment

will, when they are older, learn to respect

every bit of painstaking labor,

and learn to be grateful.

When most people gather around exotic flowers and rare plants,

praising them in unison,

my children, you must pay closer attention

to the little grasses that grow tenaciously everywhere.

“I Will Not Discuss These Things with You”

I will not discuss the art of poetry with you,

nor those tangled, inscrutable metaphors.

Please leave the study.

I will take you for a walk through the vast fields,

to see how the seedlings everywhere

struggle to grow in silence.

I will not discuss life with you,

nor those profound and abstruse currents of thought.

Please leave the study.

I will take you for a walk through the vast fields,

to touch the cool river water,

and see how it silently irrigates the fields.

I will not discuss society with you,

nor those bitter struggles that pierce the heart.

Please leave the study.

I will take you for a walk through the vast fields,

to visit groups of farmers

and see how they silently toil, their sweat pouring down.

You have lived for a long time in the bustling metropolis.

The art of poetry! Life! Society!

You have debated them at great length.

But this is spring, when seeds must urgently be sown,

and you rarely come to the countryside.

I will take you for a walk through the vast fields,

to experience how the spring breeze

gently caresses the earth.

“A Promise to the Trees”

We have endured scorching summers

and withstood cold waves.

What time do we have left for sighing?

Taking advantage of early spring,

we make a pact to plant trees together,

welcoming the continuous, nourishing flow of water.

We hear calls, one after another,

calling for lush, dense windbreak forests along the coast,

to drape the island in a soft green scarf.

In towns, suburbs, and villages,

amid memories we have searched for and sought to recover,

we call for familiar, beloved trees

to shelter travelers passing beneath them,

to invite flocks of birds to perch and build their nests,

to delight children as they climb, play, and weave their dreams,

to welcome the elderly as they rest, reflect, and reminisce about the passing years,

and to preserve the stories of the island’s origins.

Only when their roots stand firmly in generous, fertile soil

can their rootlets spread and grow.

Only by gripping the earth firmly

can their trunks and branches stand tall.

We must reject rigid concrete

that tyrannically seals the land,

and refuse to let barren, parched wastelands

continue to spread unchecked,

ravaging our island.

Let us seize the early spring season

and make a pact to plant trees together.

Let us thank every sapling that sows the seeds of hope,

and make a promise to a verdant future:

we will tend these trees with care,

stay close to them as they grow,

and pass them on from one generation to the next.

“The Land Has Never Belonged to Us”

The land has never belonged

to you, nor to me, nor to

anyone. It is only borrowed temporarily

to sustain the needs of life.

Generation after generation, our ancestors

have protected the land

before passing it on to the next generation.

To care for it, even when we own it,

is only a fleeting instant

in the history of life spanning billions of years.

Birds sweep across the sky and lodge in treetops.

Fish swim freely through oceans and streams,

making their homes among aquatic plants.

Beasts forage in forests and open fields.

Scattered across hillsides, hills, plains, and seashores,

the inhabitants of every piece of land

are merely temporary residents.

Please free our feet and our skin.

Please open our nostrils to the air.

Please open our hearts

and draw close enough to listen directly

to the deepest part of the land,

to its very depths,

where its stories flow ceaselessly.

The land gives birth to abundant and diverse

forms of life, which continue without end.

No economic figures have the right

to calculate their value or meaning.

The land, in the embrace of nature,

under the care of Heaven,

has never failed us or forsaken us.

Why, then, do people repeatedly repay it

with such brutal harm?

We who live today

will soon depart tomorrow.

How can we bear to let insatiable greed

devour the limited mountains, forests, streams, and green spaces,

becoming unworthy ancestors?

How will we answer to our descendants?

The destruction of every piece of land

is a catastrophe from which there is no recovery,

rapidly driving us toward

a desperate plight where nowhere remains to stand.

Like the air, like sunlight, like the changing seasons,

the land has never belonged

to anyone, in any generation.

No one has the right

to deprive the next generation of its future.

“I Can Only Write a Poem for You”

Here is where rivers and oceans

meet in mutual affection,

a wetland stage where fiddler crabs, mudskippers, Eurasian curlews, and waterhens

perform freely,

a home where egrets forage for food,

a life corridor where Chinese white dolphins

migrate through nearshore waters.

For generations, farmers and fishers have worked here,

sweating under the sun and enjoying the cool breeze,

welcoming the tides as they come and go.

Across the mudflats, history has left behind

enchanting ripples

that vanish in an instant.

The openness here gives us enough space to gaze into the distance,

enough space to open our minds and hearts,

to feel how small human life is,

and how much joy there can be in being small.

Will the descendants of future generations on this island

still have the chance to come here?

A petrochemical plant called Kuokuang

is drawing closer, threatening the sorrowful western coast

and its last remaining stretch of mudflat wetland.

Under the banner of “development,”

the flags are being waved wildly

against the wind at the river mouth.

Before our eyes, the desire for development is preparing to

seal off the coastline, giving us in return a restricted view,

drive away the beautiful scenery, giving us in return

smokestacks, oil pollution, and skies filled with smoke and dust.

Before our eyes, the interests of a privileged few

are preparing to intercept the water supply all along the way,

giving us drought in return.

Before our eyes, the silent masses are expected to

stand by and let the mudskippers, the fiddler crabs, and the waterhens perish,

let the egrets and Chinese white dolphins perish,

and even let the farmers and fishers die out,

all for the sake of a slogan about prosperity.

How should this account

be presented

in an environmental impact assessment?

And I can only write a poem for you.

How I wish my lines

could be forged into bullets

to pierce the heads of the insatiably greedy,

or smelted into swords

to stab the chests of those whose selfish desires

keep expanding.

But I cannot. I can only restrain myself, again and again,

and write a sorrowful, useless poem,

swallowing overwhelming anxiety and indignation.

My lines are neither bullets nor swords.

They cannot intimidate anyone.

They do not know how to kneel before anyone.

All they have are lines, every single one filled with tears,

recited again and again,

again and again, calling out to Heaven and Earth.


Introduction by Chen Qingyang

Wu Sheng’s writing about rural life does more than depict countryside scenery or express nostalgia for traditional ways of life. He is also concerned with how modernization changes the relationship between people and the land, how society evaluates laborers, and how humanity should treat future generations who have not yet been born.

Although the nine selected poems focus on different subjects, they share a clear central line of thought: beginning with rural life, grounding their perspectives in the lived experiences of fathers and farmers, and gradually extending toward land ethics, ecological conservation, social criticism, and responsibility to future generations.

I. The Content and Artistic Characteristics of Different Thematic Categories

1. Analysis of Different Thematic Categories

Category One: Rural Transformation and Criticism of Modernization

Representative work: “The Road”

This poem portrays the transformation of rural Taiwan during the process of modernization through changes in its roads. Urban roads extend into the countryside along telephone poles, bringing brightness and machinery while gradually obscuring the tranquil moonlight and starlight that once characterized rural life, as well as the leisurely pace of the villagers.

Thematic Characteristics

- Using concrete imagery to convey abstract criticism: The “road” is both an actual transportation infrastructure and a symbol of modern civilization entering the countryside.

- Using a progressive structure to portray the erosion of values: Roads enter the countryside, machines begin to roar, natural scenery gradually grows dim, and finally, even the villagers’ leisurely pace of life is replaced by television sets.

- Concluding with irony: The lines “A road is still a road, and still— / leads to my hometown’s public cemetery” transform the image of the road as a symbol of progress into a premonition of decline and death.

The poem’s central criticism is not a simple opposition to transportation infrastructure. Rather, it points out that when material civilization merely adds outward brightness to life while weakening a place’s original way of life and cultural foundations, progress itself must be reexamined.

Category Two: Fatherly Love, Family Affection, and the Burden of Life

Representative work: “The Burden”

The father in the poem commutes to work and works overtime every day, sacrificing the time he might spend admiring the sunset clouds and starry sky to focus instead on his children’s expectations and their sleeping faces. The hardships of daily life are not romanticized as effortless happiness; rather, family affection gives them another layer of meaning.

Thematic Characteristics

- Expressing fatherly love through everyday life: Rather than relying on dramatic declarations of emotion, the poem conveys responsibility through details such as working, returning home, and gazing at the children.

- Transforming the experience of labor through metaphor: The line “like a spinning top hurled with all its force from your hands” conveys the father’s life as a state of constant motion, driven by the responsibilities of family life.

- Concentrating emotion through contradictory meanings: The phrase “the heaviest / and sweetest burden of all” places hardship and happiness within the same semantic structure.

The distinctive feature of “The Burden” is its portrayal of fatherly love as an ethical commitment sustained over a lifetime. The father is not free from fatigue, nor does he have no need for a life of his own. Rather, the presence of his children leads him to reconsider the value of what he gives.

Category Three: The Dignity of Farmers and the Defense of Their Worth

Representative work: “Dad Is Certain”

The poem presents four instances of the phrase “they actually say” to convey the negative judgments imposed by outsiders. These are then answered one by one through four instances of “Dad is certain,” establishing a new standard of value for children covered in mud, dressed in coarse cloth, and unskilled in elaborate speech.

Thematic Characteristics

- A structure based on contrast: The stigma imposed by outsiders directly confronts the father’s affirmation of his children.

- Redefining beauty and dignity: Mud does not mean filth, simplicity does not mean vulgarity, and a lack of verbal sophistication does not indicate an inferiority complex.

- Moving from paternal protection toward the children’s self-identity: The poem concludes by advocating “a sense of dignity that has nothing to do with inferiority or arrogance,” taking the work beyond the expression of fatherly love and into a discussion of human dignity.

The deeper meaning of this poem lies in its opposition to using urban lifestyles, outward adornment, and verbal skills as the sole standards by which people are judged. Genuine self-respect does not require imitating others to prove one’s worth, nor does it need to be established by belittling others.

Category Four: Rural History and Intergenerational Inheritance

Representative work: “A Map of Sweet Potatoes”

Through the recurring sentence pattern “Dad received it from Grandpa ... just as Grandpa had received it from Great-Grandpa ...,” the poem connects three generations of a family. Through the hoe, the carrying pole, and orally transmitted admonitions about hardship, it portrays rural labor, family memory, and the transmission of history.

Thematic Characteristics

- Establishing a sense of belonging to the land through a crop: The everyday image of the “map of sweet potatoes” is elevated into a symbol of Taiwanese farmers’ experiences of survival and their memories of the land.

- Recording history through physical labor: Hoeing the soil, carrying loads, and speaking represent, respectively, the practice of labor, the burdens of daily life, and the transmission of experience.

- Connecting family history with collective history: The phrases “all its sorrows and glories” and “its history of endless adversity” transform rural life from a matter of personal recollection into an expression of shared historical experience.

- Maintaining cultural identity through admonition: The words “My children, do not forget” transform the hardships of the past into a form of historical education for the next generation.

An important feature of this poem is that it brings history back from abstract dates and events to the hands, shoulders, footprints, and everyday labor of the ancestors. A sense of belonging to the land is not merely an emotion; it also involves understanding how earlier generations survived and endured hardship.

Category Five: Life Education and Personal Growth

Representative work: “Growing Up”

Through three types of childhood environments—“without applause,” “without toys,” and “without embellishment”—the poem explores the character traits children may develop as they grow older. It concludes by contrasting wild grasses with exotic flowers and rare plants praised by everyone.

Thematic Characteristics

- Building an argument through parallel structures: Three groups of similarly structured lines establish clear levels of meaning among different conditions of growing up.

- Transforming living conditions into lessons in character development: Growing up without applause means not having to seize attention to prove one’s worth; growing up without toys teaches children not to treat others as instruments for their own use; growing up without embellishment teaches them to respect hard work and cherish the contributions of others.

- Using grass as a symbol of value: Although grass attracts little attention, it possesses tenacious vitality, symbolizing the resilience and dignity of ordinary people.

This poem does not simply praise poverty. Rather, it seeks to explain how a person’s upbringing can influence the way they view themselves and others. Its educational philosophy emphasizes humility, gratitude, respect, and inner strength rather than external applause or material circumstances.

Category Six: Land-Based Labor and Practical Philosophy

Representative Work: “I Will Not Discuss These Things with You”

The poet refuses to remain confined to abstract debates about the art of poetry, life, and society. He repeatedly invites the other person to leave the study and enter the fields to observe seedlings growing, river water irrigating the land, and farmers sweating as they work.

Thematic Characteristics

- Expressing a position through repetition: The phrases “I will not discuss these things with you” and “Please leave the study” establish the poem’s principal rhythm.

- Establishing a contrast between the abstract and the concrete: The study symbolizes conceptual debate, while the fields present the real activities of life and the actual experience of labor.

- Transforming natural scenery into practical knowledge: The seedlings, river water, and farmers are all constantly engaged in action. Through them, the poet reminds readers that thought must come into contact with life.

This poem does not reject theory or reflection. Rather, it questions empty talk that is detached from reality. It proposes a practical philosophy: understanding the art of poetry, life, and society requires more than verbal debate; it also requires coming close to real people and the land.

Category Seven: Ecological Conservation and Environmental Ethics

Representative Work: “A Promise to the Trees”

Beginning with tree planting in early spring, the poem depicts windbreak forests, large trees, birds, children, and the elderly. It then opposes the spread of concrete and the desertification of the land, finally concluding with a commitment to care for saplings and promise a verdant future.

Thematic Characteristics

- Expressing environmental responsibility through tree-planting activities: Rather than making an abstract appeal to protect nature, the poem presents concrete actions through planting, caring, and companionship.

- Integrating trees into social life: Trees provide shade for travelers, habitats for birds, places for children to play, and places for older people to rest. They therefore possess both ecological value and value as public spaces.

- Highlighting the environmental crisis through contrast: Fertile soil and upright branches stand in sharp contrast to rigid concrete and expanding wastelands.

- Concluding with intergenerational inheritance: The phrase “pass them on from one generation to the next” makes tree planting more than a greening project in the present; it becomes a commitment to future generations.

This poem elevates ecological conservation into an ethical question concerning our shared life. Human beings do not merely use natural resources; they also have a responsibility to preserve the habitats of other living creatures and leave behind the conditions necessary for life to continue in the future.

Category Eight: Land Ethics and Intergenerational Justice

Representative Work: “The Land Has Never Belonged to Us”

Beginning with the question of land ownership, the poem argues that human beings merely borrow the land temporarily and must protect it before passing it on to the next generation. It then extends this idea to birds, fish, beasts, and living creatures inhabiting different landscapes, ultimately criticizing greed and endless development.

Thematic Characteristics

- Establishing an ethical proposition through negation: The opening lines, “The land has never belonged / to you, nor to me,” directly challenge the notion that land is an absolute form of private property belonging to human beings.

- Moving beyond anthropocentrism toward a community of life: Birds, fish, beasts, and the inhabitants of different landscapes are all merely temporary residents.

- Reassessing the value of land through a different timescale: The history of life spanning billions of years contrasts with the brevity of a human lifetime, revealing the limited nature of contemporary human claims to land ownership.

- Moving from environmental ethics to intergenerational justice: The statement “No one has the right / to deprive the next generation of its future” elevates land protection into a responsibility toward future generations.

The central idea of this poem is that the value of land cannot be measured solely in economic figures, and the rights of people living today cannot take precedence over the right to survive of other living beings and future generations.

Its difference from “A Promise to the Trees” lies in its emphasis. The former primarily establishes ethical principles concerning land ownership and intergenerational responsibility, while the latter emphasizes how ecological conservation can be put into practice through concrete action.

Category Nine: Environmental Protest and the Responsibility of Intellectuals

Representative Work: “I Can Only Write a Poem for You”

Set in a wetland where rivers meet the ocean, the poem depicts the lives of fiddler crabs, mudskippers, migratory birds, Chinese white dolphins, farmers, and fishers. It then points to the environmental destruction that could result from the development of a petrochemical plant, ultimately reflecting on both the power and the limitations of poetry when confronted with real-world interests.

Thematic Characteristics

- Establishing what needs protection through ecological details: Wetland organisms, Chinese white dolphins, and farmers and fishers give the environmental issue concrete living substance.

- Exposing the irony of development rhetoric: The banner bearing the name “development” contrasts with restricted views, smoke and dust, and drought, calling into question the distribution of benefits behind the slogans of progress.

- Expressing anger through powerful imagery: The poet wishes his lines could be forged into bullets or swords, conveying his anxiety and indignation in the face of environmental crises.

- Deepening the mission of poetry through self-reflection: The lines “I can only restrain myself, again and again, / and write a sorrowful, useless poem” express the dilemma of a writer who knows that words cannot directly stop destruction but must nevertheless speak out.

This poem is not merely an environmental conservation poem; it is also a social poem with a strong sense of public criticism. It asks: When economic development, political power, and the interests of a privileged few threaten the environment we share, what responsibilities should poets, intellectuals, and the silent masses assume?

The sense of helplessness expressed in the poem does not signify surrender. Instead, it reveals the contradiction inherent in literature's engagement with reality: poetry cannot directly replace laws, policies, or collective action, but it can still preserve the experiences of threatened lives and expose the costs concealed by the rhetoric of development.

II. Five Shared Characteristics Derived from the Nine Poems

1. Rural Life as the Foundation of Thought

Roads, fields, sweet potatoes, hoes, carrying poles, trees, and wetlands are not merely decorative images of scenery. They are concrete things that embody lived experience, cultural identity, and judgments about values.

2. Expanding from Personal and Family Affection to Public Ethics

“The Burden” focuses on family responsibility, “Dad Is Certain” on personal dignity, and “A Map of Sweet Potatoes” on historical inheritance. These concerns eventually extend to the shared fate of the land, the ecological environment, and future generations.

3. Frequent Use of Contrast and Repetition

The city and the countryside, outside judgments and a father's convictions, exotic flowers and ordinary grass, land and economic figures, and development slogans and environmental costs form striking contrasts in thought. Parallel structures and repetition, meanwhile, give the arguments rhythm and persuasive force.

4. Creating Intimacy Through Colloquial Language, Direct Address, and Plain Statements

Expressions such as “Dad,” “My children,” and “I will take you there” transform the poet's position into direct dialogue. This approach does not pursue obscure or elaborate diction; instead, it emphasizes the tangible quality of lived experience and the clarity of thought.

5. Gradually Moving from Lyricism to Public Criticism

The first half of the selection focuses more heavily on family, children, ancestors, and rural life. The latter half confronts ecological destruction, development interests, and intergenerational justice more directly. Poetry thus expands from personal emotion into an ethical questioning of social systems.

III. Thematic Relationships Among the Nine Poems: From Individual Life to Land Ethics

First Level: The Individual and the Family

“The Burden,” “Dad Is Certain,” and “Growing Up.”

Second Level: Rural Life and History

“The Road,” “A Map of Sweet Potatoes,” and “I Will Not Discuss These Things with You.”

Third Level: Nature and Ecology

“A Promise to the Trees” and “The Land Has Never Belonged to Us.”

Fourth Level: Social Criticism and Intergenerational Responsibility

“I Can Only Write a Poem for You.”

This classification is an analytical organization based on the thematic relationships among the nine poems, rather than an arrangement explicitly specified in the original document. The levels also overlap: family responsibility can extend to intergenerational responsibility, rural history can connect with land ethics, and environmental criticism can return to the poet's personal emotions and lived experiences.

IV. Conclusion: The Core Spirit of Wu Sheng's Rural Poetry

Based on these nine works, three particularly important directions emerge in Wu Sheng's rural poetry.

First, rural life is not a nostalgic backdrop but the starting point for judgments about values. It provides the poet with a concrete vantage point from which to examine labor, family affection, dignity, and modernization. “The Road” criticizes the unchecked expansion of civilization, while “A Map of Sweet Potatoes” preserves the history of farmers that has been overlooked.

Second, nature is not a resource to be admired or exploited at will, but a living environment that humanity must protect collectively. “A Promise to the Trees” establishes ecological responsibility through the act of planting trees, while “The Land Has Never Belonged to Us” goes further by rejecting absolute human ownership of the land and advancing an ethical demand that extends across generations.

Third, poetry must not only express emotion but also confront injustice in the real world. “I Can Only Write a Poem for You” places the environmental crisis alongside the poet's sense of helplessness, highlighting both the limitations of literature and the necessity of its continued expression.

If the shared spirit of these nine poems were to be summarized in a single sentence, it could be stated as follows:

Wu Sheng begins with the hands of farmers, the heart of a father, and the fate of the land, transforming rural writing into an enduring concern for human dignity, the value of nature, and the right of future generations to survive.

II. Classification and Analysis of the Narrative Characteristics of Wu Sheng’s Poetry

— From Narrative Perspective, Temporal Structure, and the Construction of Situations to Ethical Discourse

Using the nine poems included in this collection as the primary texts, I analyze from the perspective of narratology how the works arrange narrators, characters, events, time, space, and emotional shifts. Here, “narrative” refers not only to poems with complete storylines, but also to how the poet organizes lived experience, arranges imagery, and develops ideas, enabling readers to gradually understand the deeper meanings of the works through concrete situations.

These nine poems by Wu Sheng do not all employ traditional storytelling methods. Some construct miniature stories from characters’ lived experiences; some establish historical narratives through generational memory; and others develop ideas through repetition, contrast, and argument. Therefore, the analysis should distinguish among “event-based narrative,” “life-course narrative,” “spatial transformation narrative,” and “discursive narrative,” rather than treating all the works as narrative poems with complete plots.

I. Analysis of Narrative Types

Category One: Narratives Developed Through Everyday Events

1. “The Burden”: From a Record of Daily Life to Emotional Transformation

“The Burden” is one of the nine poems with a particularly clear structure of everyday-life narrative.

The poem begins at dusk after work, describing how the father occasionally gazes at the sunset clouds but no longer lingers. It then shifts to late at night after overtime, when the father sees the starry sky but no longer loses himself in its beauty. These two episodes from everyday life are connected through the children’s expectations and their sleeping faces, eventually leading to a reflection on the father’s responsibilities in life.

Stage One: Everyday Life

Leaving work, working overtime, and gazing at the sunset clouds and starry sky.

Stage Two: An Emotional Shift

The father turns his attention away from the natural scenery and toward his children’s expectations and sleeping faces.

Stage Three: Affirming the Meaning of Life

Everyday labor is reinterpreted as “the heaviest and sweetest burden of all.”

This poem has three distinctive narrative characteristics.

First, temporal progression replaces a complex plot. Dusk, late night, and the daily commute to and from work establish a recurring rhythm of everyday life. There are no dramatic external events, yet the accumulation of ordinary moments gradually reveals the father’s responsibilities.

Second, details replace direct exposition. The poet does not begin by declaring how great a father’s love is. Instead, he describes how the father no longer lingers over the sunset clouds or becomes absorbed in the starry sky, allowing readers to understand his feelings through his actions.

Third, the ending reinterprets the life depicted earlier in the poem. The work and exhaustion introduced at the beginning might initially be understood as sacrifices imposed by life. By the end, however, they acquire meaning through family affection. The word “burden” thus carries two meanings: the weight of responsibility and the sweetness of life.

From a narratological perspective, this is an emotional narrative that moves from concrete actions toward inner meaning. Its plot is simple, yet it contains a complete psychological transformation.

2. “The Road”: Constructing a Narrative of Decline Through Spatial Change

“The Road” does not center on the experiences of a particular character. Instead, it makes the road itself the narrative axis of the entire poem.

Urban roads extend into the countryside, and the countryside gradually takes on a new brightness. Subsequently, the clamor of machinery obscures the moonlight and starlight, while the villagers’ formerly leisurely pace of life is replaced by television sets. Finally, the road remains, but its meaning is reconnected to the image of “leading to my hometown’s public cemetery.”

One narrative arrangement deserves particular attention: the poet does not directly announce that the countryside has declined. Instead, he allows readers to witness a sequence of changes and then reconsider the meaning of the road in light of the ending.

Its narrative formula is:

The entry of external influences → Changes in the living environment → The decline of traditional ways of life → A symbolic conclusion.

In this process, the “road” gradually changes from an initial symbol of modernization into a symbol of cultural decline. The “cemetery” at the end does not merely identify a location. Rather, it retrospectively changes readers’ understanding of the preceding lines, creating an ironic conclusion.

Therefore, “The Road” can be regarded as a narrative that uses spatial transformation in place of an individual character’s fate. What truly changes is not the road itself, but the world of life into which the road extends.

Category Two: Narratives Developed Through Relationships and Conflicts of Perspective

3. “Dad Is Certain”: Dialogic Narrative and the Dialectic of Values

This poem does not directly depict a specific conversation between the father and his children, yet it establishes an implicit conflict of viewpoints. Two positions emerge in the narrative: “they,” who judge rural children according to external standards, and “Dad,” who firmly affirms the children’s worth.

The poem’s structure can be divided into two stages.

Stage One: External Judgments

Being covered in mud is regarded as being dirty; not knowing how to speak a foreign language is regarded as being stupid; wearing coarse cloth and going barefoot is regarded as being uncultured; and lacking skill in elaborate speech is regarded as evidence of an inferiority complex.

Stage Two: The Father’s Rebuttal

Through the repeated phrase “Dad is certain,” the speaker reaffirms the children’s innocence, naturalness, and dignity, ultimately urging them to maintain “a sense of dignity that has nothing to do with inferiority or arrogance.”

This narrative does not depend on the characters’ external actions. Instead, it relies on the conflict between different value systems.

From a narratological perspective, “they” constitute a collective character without specific names. This approach makes prejudice more than the personal opinion of a particular individual; it becomes a mechanism of social judgment that exists throughout society. In contrast, “Dad” is a narrating figure with a clearly defined position. He not only protects his children but also redefines what beauty and dignity mean.

It is important to note that the ending does not merely comfort the children. Instead, it shifts the narrative focus from the father’s affirmation to the children’s own determination to uphold their dignity. In other words, the father’s words are only the starting point. The true objective of the narrative is to show how the children establish their own judgments of value.

4. “A Map of Sweet Potatoes”: Intergenerational Narrative and Collective Memory

“A Map of Sweet Potatoes” is the poem in this collection with the clearest intergenerational narrative.

Through the recurring sentence pattern “Dad received it from Grandpa ... just as Grandpa had received it from Great-Grandpa ...,” the poet establishes a continuous temporal chain linking the ancestors, the father, and the children. Here, time is not merely a sequence of dates on a calendar; it is the transmission of labor experiences, practical wisdom, and historical memory.

First Line of Inheritance: Tools of Labor

The hoe and the carrying pole embody the physical labor of farmers and give history a tangible, material form.

Second Line of Inheritance: Life Experiences

The phrase “all its sorrows and glories” transforms the labor experiences of individuals and families into a shared memory.

Third Line of Inheritance: Historical Narrative

The ancestors’ oral accounts and admonitions about hardship extend personal memories into “a history of endless adversity,” which is then passed on to the next generation.

This poem’s narrative has three characteristics.

First, its temporal structure combines retrospection with continuity. The poem begins with the contemporary father, looks back at the lives of Grandpa and Great-Grandpa, and then returns to the father’s admonition to his children. The past is not a history that has ended; it is an experience that continues to leave traces in contemporary life.

Second, history is presented through the body rather than through abstract dates. Rough hands, stone-hard shoulders, and heavy footprints allow readers to understand farmers’ living conditions through their physical labor.

Third, the narrative carries an ethical responsibility toward memory. The words “My children, do not forget” transform the poem from recollection into admonition. The poet’s concern is not merely that descendants might lack certain historical knowledge, but that they might sever their connection with their ancestors.

Therefore, “A Map of Sweet Potatoes” is not merely a family narrative; it is also a form of collective historical narrative. It makes farmers’ lived experiences part of history, challenging the assumption that only those in power or official historical records have the authority to represent the past.

Category Three: Narratives Constructed Through Allegory, Guidance, and the Development of Ideas

5. “Growing Up”: An Allegorical Narrative That Derives Character from Conditions of Upbringing

“Growing Up” does not depict specific events in the life of an individual child from childhood to adulthood. Instead, it uses three hypothetical conditions of upbringing to explore the possible formation of character.

Its narrative sequence is as follows:

1. An environment without applause is linked to not needing to seize attention to prove one’s worth.
2. An environment without toys is linked to not treating other people as instruments for one’s own use.
3. An environment without embellishment is linked to respecting hard work and learning gratitude.
4. Finally, the contrast between exotic flowers and ordinary grass presents the poet’s preferred values concerning life.

This is a narrative that derives possible outcomes from given conditions and can also be described as an allegorical narrative of growing up.

Its distinctive feature is that the poet does not portray growth through the psychological changes of a single character. Instead, the conditions of upbringing are transformed into a universal proposition about life. The grass becomes the central symbol of the poem: it attracts little attention, yet grows tenaciously in ordinary surroundings.

From a narratological perspective, however, it is also important to recognize that this reasoning represents the poet’s assertion of values rather than a strict law of causation. Growing up without applause or toys does not necessarily produce good character. What the poem truly emphasizes is that respect and gratitude can be cultivated without relying on external advantages.

6. “I Will Not Discuss These Things with You”: Guided Narrative and a Shift in Perspective

The narrator of this poem assumes a clearly defined guiding role. He repeatedly refuses to discuss the art of poetry, life, and society, then invites the other person to leave the study and enter the fields.

Two implicit character positions emerge in the poem.

The Guide: Someone who knows what he wants the other person to see and actively directs the other person’s attention.

The Person Being Guided: Someone who has lived in the city for a long time, is accustomed to abstract debate, and is now invited to reconnect with the land and the experience of labor.

The poem progresses not through conflict between events, but through a change in the way the world is observed.

This narrative has one important characteristic: movement through space is simultaneously movement in thought.

Moving from the study to the fields is not merely a change in geographical location; it is a shift from conceptual debate to practical experience. Through concrete subjects such as seedlings, river water, and farmers, the poet rearranges the order in which readers come to understand the art of poetry, life, and society.

This also demonstrates that Wu Sheng’s poetry does not necessarily require a complete storyline. As long as the narrator can arrange a process of observation that gradually changes the reader’s understanding, the poem can form a purposeful narrative.

7. “A Promise to the Trees”: A Narrative of Collective Action and Commitment to the Future

“A Promise to the Trees” uses “we” as its narrative subject, distinguishing it from the preceding works, which center on a father or an individual guide.

The poem begins with the collective action of planting trees, then expands to windbreak forests along the coast and large trees in towns and villages. It subsequently describes how trees provide habitats for birds, places for children to play, and spaces for older people to rest. The middle section turns to a rejection of the spread of concrete and expanding wastelands, before returning to the care of saplings, promises to the future, and the transmission of responsibility across generations.

Its narrative sequence can be summarized as follows:

Collective action begins → The life that trees can make possible is imagined → Environmental threats are confronted → The responsibility to protect nature is reaffirmed → The commitment is passed on to the next generation.

This is a future-oriented narrative centered on collective action.

It is worth noting that “we” in the poem does not merely describe events that have already taken place. It also serves as a call to action, incorporating readers into a community that shares responsibility. The closing phrase “pass them on from one generation to the next” makes tree planting more than an immediate environmental activity; it becomes a commitment that extends across time.

Therefore, the narrative focus of this poem is not on recording a complete tree-planting event, but on establishing a vision of the future that can be put into practice.

8. “The Land Has Never Belonged to Us”: A Discursive Narrative from Philosophical Proposition to Ethical Conclusion

The narrative characteristics of this poem differ from those of the preceding works. It has no clearly defined character relationships or sequence of events. Instead, it gradually expands the scope of thought through a series of propositions.

First, the poet argues that the land belongs to no individual and is merely borrowed temporarily by the people of the present. He then describes how birds, fish, beasts, and other living creatures use their respective habitats. The poem subsequently turns to the harm human beings inflict on the land, ultimately concluding that no one has the right to deprive future generations of their future.

This structure can be regarded as a discursive narrative: through the progressive development of ideas, the poet leads readers through a process of intellectual reasoning.

Its progression has four levels:

• Redefining ownership: Human beings are temporary users of the land, not its absolute masters.
• Expanding the scope of life: Human beings are not the only living creatures that use the land.
• Examining contemporary actions: Economic interests cannot justify the brutal destruction of nature.
• Establishing intergenerational ethics: People living today must not deprive future generations of the conditions necessary for survival in pursuit of their own interests.

The lines “We who live today / will soon depart tomorrow” place the finite span of human life alongside the long history of the land, giving the ethical question greater temporal depth.

The narrative force of this poem does not arise from the occurrence of events, but from the expansion of ideas: from individual ownership to a community of life, and then to intergenerational justice.

Category Four: Narratives Constructed Through Crisis, Irony, and Self-Reflection

9. “I Can Only Write a Poem for You”: Environmental Crisis and the Narrator’s Self-Reflection

This is the poem with the most complex narrative layers among the nine works.

It depicts not only an environmental crisis but also how the poet understands, experiences, and responds to that crisis. Consequently, two narrative strands coexist in the poem: external events and internal psychological experience.

First Layer: Establishing the Existing World of Life

The meeting of rivers and the ocean, the wetland organisms, the Chinese white dolphins, and generations of farmers and fishers collectively constitute a place of natural and historical value.

Second Layer: The Crisis Arrives

A petrochemical plant and its development plans draw closer, placing the previously open wetland within a conflict between economic interests and environmental destruction.

Third Layer: Questioning Public Responsibility

Through the lines “How should this account / be presented / in an environmental impact assessment?” the poet transforms the environmental issue into a question of responsibility, challenging the discrepancy between development slogans and their actual costs.

Fourth Layer: The Poet’s Self-Reflection

The poet wishes his lines could become bullets or swords, yet acknowledges that words cannot directly intimidate his opponents. In the end, he can only recite his poem repeatedly and call out to Heaven and Earth.

The narrative characteristics of this poem deserve particular attention from four perspectives.

First, it establishes a world that can be lost before presenting the crisis. The opening descriptions of wetland organisms, farmers and fishers, and the tides are not merely introductions to the scenery. Before the threat of development emerges, they enable readers to understand the value of life in this place. When the plant draws closer, readers perceive not merely a change in land use, but the possible disappearance of an entire world of life.

Second, irony is used to create narrative conflict. “Development” and “prosperity” ordinarily carry positive connotations, yet the poet places them alongside restricted views, smoke and dust, drought, and threats to the livelihoods of farmers and fishers. This approach makes the conflict more than an opposition between environmental protection and development. It exposes the contradiction between claims made in the name of the public interest and the actual distribution of benefits.

Third, the narrator becomes part of the story. The poet does not remain an external commentator throughout the poem. He directly expresses his impulse to turn his lines into weapons while also admitting that he cannot actually do so. The narrator’s emotional changes thus become an important internal thread in the poem.

Fourth, the poem concludes with an unresolved contradiction. The poet acknowledges that words cannot directly stop the development project, yet he refuses to abandon his voice. The ending therefore does not resolve the problem in the conventional sense. Instead, it establishes an ongoing ethical act: even without any guarantee of success, testimony must still be left behind.

From a narratological perspective, the power of this poem arises from its dual crisis. Externally, the wetland and the livelihoods of farmers and fishers face possible destruction. Internally, the poet questions his own ability to speak effectively. By bringing these two crises together, the work moves beyond ordinary environmental description and becomes a reflection on both the possibilities and the limitations of literature’s engagement with public reality.

VI. A Comprehensive Analysis: Six Narrative Characteristics of Wu Sheng’s Poetry

Although the nine poems discussed above employ different narrative approaches, they share six identifiable characteristics.

1. Replacing Complex Plots with Everyday Experience

Wu Sheng can construct a narrative without arranging numerous characters, conflicts, and plot twists. “The Burden” centers on a father’s daily commute and care for his children; “A Map of Sweet Potatoes” establishes history through the labor of three generations; and “The Road” constructs a sequence of events through the changes brought about by a road entering the countryside.

The key to this narrative approach is organizing actions, objects, and changes in everyday life into a meaningful process.

2. Establishing Narrative Rhythm Through Repetition

Sentence patterns such as “Ever since…,” “Dad received from Grandpa…,” “I will not discuss…,” and “Dad is certain…” serve not only as rhetorical repetition but also as tools for organizing the narrative.

Repetition helps readers recognize the relationships between different stages and perceive the accumulation of meaning. In particular, the repeated use of “Ever since” in “The Road” progressively develops the changes brought about by the road, while the repeated generational patterns in “A Map of Sweet Potatoes” connect different individuals into a shared history.

3. Connecting Individuals, Families, and Society Through Temporal Structure

Wu Sheng’s poetry often places present-day life within a much longer timescale.

“The Burden” moves from a father’s daily life to the care he received from his grandparents. “A Map of Sweet Potatoes” looks back from the present to the ancestors and then turns toward the children. “The Land Has Never Belonged to Us,” meanwhile, places the brief lives of contemporary people within the history of life spanning hundreds of millions of years.

Time in these works is therefore not merely the background against which events occur; it is also a source of ethical meaning. People must remember where they came from and consider what they will leave behind.

4. Presenting Changes in Thought Through Changes in Space

Wu Sheng often uses concrete spaces to convey abstract ideas.

• “The Road”: The road enters the countryside, revealing the changes in everyday life brought about by modernization.
• “I Will Not Discuss These Things with You”: The movement from the study to the fields symbolizes a shift from abstract debate to practical engagement with life.
• “I Can Only Write a Poem for You”: The movement from an expansive wetland to the threat of industrial development reveals how public space can be taken away.

Space is not a static background but an important force driving the narrative forward. Changes in place also alter how characters and readers understand the world.

5. Guiding Readers Through the Narrator’s Explicit Position

These nine poems rarely attempt to conceal the narrator’s values. In “Dad Is Certain,” the father defends his children. In “I Will Not Discuss These Things with You,” the narrator actively guides the reader into the fields. In “The Land Has Never Belonged to Us,” the poetic voice directly articulates an ethic of responsibility toward the land.

This narrative approach clearly guides the reader, but that does not mean the poems offer only one-sided moral instruction. When the narrator’s position encounters real-world difficulties, as in the sense of helplessness expressed in “I Can Only Write a Poem for You,” the work creates room for self-examination, allowing the narrator’s own position to be scrutinized.

6. Using the Ending to Transform Meaning Rather Than Merely Conclude Events

Wu Sheng is skilled at turning the final section of a poem into a key that enables readers to reinterpret what came before.

What these endings share is their transformation of concrete experiences into broader intellectual meanings. An ending does not merely finish a story; it determines how readers should reinterpret the poem as a whole.

VII. An Overall Assessment from the Perspective of Narratology

From a more rigorous narratological perspective, these nine poems by Wu Sheng do not excel through complex plots, large casts of characters, or the flow of psychological consciousness. Rather, they excel at organizing everyday life, family memory, rural spaces, and public crises into meaningful processes with clear directions.

Their narrative characteristics can be summarized at three levels:

Micro level: Concrete situations are established through the life experiences of fathers, children, ancestors, farmers, and other figures.

Meso level: Spaces such as villages, fields, roads, trees, and wetlands reveal changes in ways of life and social environments.

Macro level: Individual experiences expand into historical memory, land ethics, ecological responsibility, and intergenerational justice.

This narrative approach makes the rural homeland more than an object of description; it becomes the foundation upon which ideas unfold. The people and landscapes in these poems matter not only because they evoke emotions but also because they carry broader historical and ethical questions.

In conclusion, the narrative power of Wu Sheng’s poetry lies in its ability to use the most ordinary materials of everyday life to sustain a far-reaching development of thought: from a father’s responsibilities to a family’s memory; from changes in a rural road to the transformation of an entire world of living; and from the fate of a piece of land to humanity’s ethical responsibilities toward future generations. This is the most significant narrative characteristic shared by these nine poems.

III. The Aesthetic Characteristics of Wu Sheng’s Poetry

1. The Aesthetics of Rural Realism

Wu Sheng draws on Taiwan’s rural communities, pastoral landscapes, and farmers’ lives to portray the realities of the land, its people, and the changes of the times.

2. The Aesthetics of Labor and Life

Through farming, physical labor, and everyday activities, he affirms the value of work and highlights the dignity and resilience of ordinary lives.

3. The Aesthetics of Simplicity and Naturalness

He employs plain, natural language close to everyday speech without excessive embellishment, using lived experience to give his poetry a sense of authenticity and emotional power.

4. The Aesthetics of Everyday Lyricism

Beginning with family affection, domestic life, and the details of daily experience, he transforms ordinary moments into profound emotional expression, creating a lyrical style that is restrained yet sincere.

5. The Aesthetics of Imagery and Symbolism

Concrete images such as roads, land, sweet potatoes, and trees convey deeper meanings associated with personal growth, cultural memory, identification with the land, and the transmission of experience between generations.

6. The Aesthetics of Ecological Ethics

Concerned with the survival of the land and the natural environment, he elevates the beauty of nature into an ethical concern for environmental protection, the coexistence of living beings, and future generations.

7. The Aesthetics of Critical Reflection

Through contrasts between tradition and modernity, nature and development, and ideals and reality, he reflects on the social problems arising from rural transformation and modernization.

Summary: Wu Sheng’s poetry takes rural life as its aesthetic foundation, transforming the land, rural communities, labor, and family affection into poetic images imbued with the depth of lived experience. Through language that is simple, unpretentious, and emotionally rich, he portrays farmers’ experiences of survival, family ethics, and emotional bonds with the land. Everyday life thus becomes a source of poetry, while individual lives become connected with the collective memory of rural communities.

Artistically, he does not deliberately pursue ornate rhetoric. Instead, through concrete details of everyday life, sincere emotions, and restrained lyricism, he develops an aesthetic style that is natural and unadorned, profound and inwardly composed. Furthermore, his rural writing goes beyond nostalgia and praise. Beginning with identification with the land, it extends into reflections on ecological conservation, the plight of rural communities, and social structures, demonstrating an enduring concern for the natural environment, vulnerable lives, and social justice.

The central aesthetic principle of Wu Sheng’s poetry therefore lies in using the land to sustain life, affirming human dignity through labor, deepening human relationships through family affection, and extending the writing of rural experience from personal emotion and local identity to ecological awareness and social criticism.

“The Road”

Ever since the city’s roads, following the utility poles—

the city’s spies sent out to probe—

began extending, one after another, into my hometown,

boldly displaying their luxury,

the roads of my hometown gradually acquired a new luster.

Ever since the roads of my hometown gradually acquired a new luster,

machines began shouting and clamoring,

gradually darkening

the tranquil moonlight and starlight of my hometown.

Ever since the tranquil moonlight and starlight of my hometown

were gradually darkened,

the leisurely footsteps of the people here

were all surrendered to little television sets.

Yet a road is still a road.

Whether muddy or desolate,

take one step forward, and how many rough patches lie beneath your feet?

A road is still a road, still

leading—

to the cemetery of my hometown.

“The Burden”

After work, evening has already fallen.

Sometimes I look at the brilliant sunset,

but I no longer linger,

because your little faces, lifted toward Dad,

reveal a greater expectation.

After overtime, it is already the middle of the night.

Sometimes I look at the dazzling starry sky,

but I no longer lose myself in it,

because your little faces, asleep,

are more captivating than the stars.

Day after day, Dad commutes to and from work,

like a spinning top forcefully flung from your hands,

circling around you, round and round,

until Dad’s passionate ambitions

are gradually transformed into a tenderness

that is enduring and finely woven.

Just as Grandpa and Grandma

wove a lifetime of care around Dad,

enduring and finely woven.

My children, Dad has no complaints,

because this is the burden in life

that is heaviest,

yet sweetest.

“Dad Is Certain”

Because you are covered in mud,

they actually say you are dirty.

Because you cannot say “bye-bye,”

they actually say you are stupid.

Because you wear coarse cloth clothes and go barefoot,

they actually say you are uncouth.

Because you do not like to show off

and are not skilled at using fancy words,

they actually say you lack self-confidence.

My children, no matter what they say,

Dad is certain that you are the cleanest of children.

Dad is certain that your deep, steady gaze is the most moving.

Dad is certain that your simple clothes are the most beautiful.

And you must uphold

a self-respect that has nothing to do with inferiority or arrogance.

“A Map of Sweet Potatoes”

Just as Dad received the hoe in silence

from Grandpa’s rough hands,

as Grandpa had received it from Great-Grandpa,

heaving and heaving, with a thousand strokes and ten thousand more,

they hoed into the deep soil

this map of sweet potatoes.

Just as Dad received the sturdy carrying pole in silence

from Grandpa’s shoulders, hard as stone,

as Grandpa had received it from Great-Grandpa,

lifting and lifting, carrying load after load,

they shouldered all the sorrow and glory

of this map of sweet potatoes.

Just as Dad received in silence

the earnest admonitions of hard-earned wisdom

from Grandpa’s taciturn mouth,

as Grandpa had received them from Great-Grandpa,

speaking and speaking, again and again,

they recorded the troubled history

of this map of sweet potatoes.

Although some people do not want to speak of it,

and are even eager to sever

their blood ties

to this map,

my children, do not forget

the hardships Dad has endured,

following Grandpa’s heavy footprints,

step by step.

“Growing Up”

Children who grow up quietly

in an environment without applause

will not, when they are older, use every means to steal the spotlight

or feel uncomfortable when ignored.

Children who grow up diligently

in an environment without toys

will not, when they are older, treat other people

as their own toys.

Children who grow up like wild trees

in an environment without embellishment

will, when they are older, understand how to respect

every thread and strand of hard-earned labor,

and will learn gratitude.

When most people gather around exotic flowers

and sing their praises in unison,

my children, you must pay more attention

to the little grasses that grow tenaciously everywhere.

“I Will Not Discuss These Things with You”

I will not discuss the art of poetry with you,

nor those tangled, obscure metaphors.

Please leave the study.

I will take you for a walk through the vast fields,

to see how the seedlings everywhere

struggle to grow in silence.

I will not discuss life with you,

nor those profound and mysterious currents of thought.

Please leave the study.

I will take you for a walk through the vast fields,

to touch the cool river water

and see how it silently irrigates the fields.

I will not discuss society with you,

nor those heart-wrenching struggles and rivalries.

Please leave the study.

I will take you for a walk through the vast fields,

to visit groups of farmers

and see how they silently toil, sweating under the sun.

You have long lived in a bustling metropolis.

The art of poetry, life, society—

you have argued about them at length.

But this is spring, when seeds must urgently be sown,

and you seldom come to the countryside.

I will take you for a walk through the vast fields,

to experience how the spring breeze

gently blows across the earth.

“A Promise to the Trees”

Having endured scorching summers

and withstood cold waves,

we have no time left for lamentation.

In early spring,

we make a pact to plant trees together,

welcoming the continuous nourishment of water.

We hear calls summoning us.

Along the coast, they call for lush windbreak forests

to wrap the island in a soft green scarf.

In towns, suburbs, and villages,

amid memories we search for and rediscover,

they call for familiar, welcoming trees

to shelter travelers passing beneath them,

invite birds to perch and build their nests,

delight children as they climb, play, and weave their dreams,

and welcome the elderly to rest, reflect, and savor the passing years,

passing on the island’s story.

Only when trees stand on generous soil can their roots spread deep.

Only when their roots firmly grip the earth can their trunks grow upright.

We reject rigid concrete that arrogantly seals everything off,

refuse to allow deserts to expand and the land to dry out,

and resist the abuse inflicted upon our island.

We must catch the early spring season.

Let us make a pact to plant trees together,

give thanks to every sapling that spreads hope,

and make a promise to a verdant future.

We will care for them attentively and stay close to them,

passing them on from one generation to the next.

“The Land Has Never Belonged to Us”

The land has never belonged

to you, nor to me, nor to

anyone. It is only borrowed temporarily

to provide what life requires.

Generation after generation, our ancestors protected the land

and then entrusted it to the next generation

to care for. Even when we possess it,

we are only here for a fleeting instant

in the history of life spanning hundreds of millions of years.

Birds sweep across the sky and lodge in treetops.

Fish swim freely through oceans and streams, dwelling among aquatic plants.

Beasts forage in forests and open country,

scattered across slopes, hills, plains, and coastlines.

The inhabitants of every piece of land

are merely temporary residents.

Please liberate our feet and skin.

Please open our nostrils to the air.

Please open our hearts

and let us listen directly

to the deepest depths of the land,

to the stories flowing ceaselessly

from within.

The land nurtures an abundant diversity

of life that continues without end.

No economic figures have the right

to calculate its value and significance.

The land, embraced by nature

and cared for by Heaven,

has never failed us or abandoned us.

Why, then, do people repeatedly repay it

with brutal harm?

We who are alive today

will depart tomorrow.

How can we bear to let insatiable greed

devour our limited forests, streams, and green spaces,

becoming unworthy ancestors?

How will we explain ourselves to our descendants?

The destruction of every piece of land

is a catastrophe from which there is no recovery,

driving us ever more rapidly

toward a desperate place where we can no longer stand.

Like the air, like sunlight, like the seasons,

the land has never belonged

to anyone, to any generation.

No one has the right

to deprive the next generation of its future.

“I Can Only Write a Poem for You”

Here, rivers and oceans

meet in loving embrace.

Fiddler crabs, mudskippers, Eurasian curlews, and black-winged stilts

perform freely on the stage of the wetlands.

Egrets find food and shelter here.

White dolphins travel back and forth through this coastal corridor of life.

For generations, farmers and fishers have worked here,

sweating beneath the sun and enjoying the cool breeze,

welcoming the tides as they come and go.

On the mudflats, history forms

enchanting ripples

that vanish in an instant.

The openness here gives us enough room to gaze into the distance,

enough space to open our minds

and feel the smallness of human life,

as well as the pleasures that smallness can bring.

Will the descendants of this island

still have the chance to come here?

A petrochemical complex called “Kuo Kuang”

is drawing near, threatening the sorrowful western coast

and its last remaining stretch of mudflat wetlands.

A banner called “Development”

is being waved wildly against the wind at the estuary.

Before our eyes, the desire for development is preparing to

seal off the coastline, returning to us a closed-off view.

It will drive away the beautiful scenery and give us in return

chimneys, oil pollution, and a sky filled with smoke and dust.

A small group’s interests

are about to intercept the water supply all along the way,

giving us drought in return.

Before our eyes, the silent masses are expected to

let the mudskippers go, let the fiddler crabs go, let the black-winged stilts go,

let the egrets and white dolphins go,

and even let the farmers and fishers perish—

all for the slogan of prosperity.

How should this account

be presented

in an environmental impact assessment?

And I can only write a poem for you.

How I wish my lines

could be forged into bullets

to pierce the heads of the insatiably greedy,

or smelted into swords

to stab into chests swollen with ever-expanding selfish desire.

But I cannot. I can only restrain myself, again and again,

writing a sorrowful and useless poem,

swallowing overwhelming anxiety and indignation.

My lines are neither bullets nor swords.

They cannot intimidate anyone.

They do not know how to kneel before anyone.

They contain only lines and lines filled with tears,

recited again and again,

again and again, calling out to Heaven and Earth.

Introduction by Chen Qingyang

Wu Sheng’s writing about the rural homeland does more than depict country landscapes or express nostalgia for traditional ways of life. He is also concerned with how modernization changes the relationship between people and the land, how society judges those who labor, and how humanity should treat generations that have not yet been born.

Although the nine selected poems emphasize different subjects, they share a clear intellectual thread. Beginning with rural life and grounded in the lived experiences of fathers and farmers, they gradually extend toward land ethics, ecological conservation, social criticism, and intergenerational responsibility.

I. Content and Artistic Characteristics of Different Subject Categories

1. Analysis of Subject Categories

Category One: Rural Transformation and Criticism of Modernization

Representative work: “The Road”

This poem uses changes in the road to depict the transformation of Taiwan’s rural communities during modernization. Urban roads follow utility poles into the countryside, bringing brightness and machinery while gradually obscuring the once-peaceful moonlight and starlight, as well as the leisurely pace of rural life.

Subject characteristics

• Using concrete scenery to convey abstract criticism: The “road” is both an actual transportation infrastructure and a symbol of modern civilization entering the countryside.
• Using a progressive structure to portray the loss of values: The road enters the village, machinery begins to clamor, natural scenery gradually fades, and finally even people’s leisurely rhythms are replaced by television sets.
• Concluding the poem with irony: “A road is still a road, still /—leading to the cemetery of my hometown” transforms the image of progress associated with the road into a premonition of decline and death.

The poem’s criticism is not simply an opposition to road construction. Rather, it points out that when material civilization adds outward splendor to life but weakens a place’s established ways of living and cultural foundations, the meaning of progress must be reconsidered.

Category Two: Paternal Love and the Burden of Life

Representative work: “The Burden”

The father in the poem commutes to work every day and works overtime, sacrificing the time he might spend admiring sunsets and stars to focus instead on his children’s expectations and sleeping faces. The hardships of life are not romanticized as effortless happiness; rather, family affection gives them another layer of meaning.

Subject characteristics

• Expressing paternal love through everyday life: Instead of making dramatic declarations of emotion, the poem conveys responsibility through details such as working, returning home, and gazing at the children.
• Transforming the experience of labor through metaphor: “Like a spinning top forcefully flung from your hands” conveys the father’s life as a state of constant rotation, driven by family responsibilities.
• Concentrating emotion through contradictory meanings: “The heaviest, yet sweetest, burden” places hardship and happiness within the same semantic structure.

The distinctive quality of “The Burden” lies in its portrayal of paternal love as an enduring ethical commitment in life. The father is neither free from exhaustion nor without a need for a life of his own. Rather, the presence of his children leads him to reinterpret the value of what he gives.

Category Three: The Dignity of Farmers and the Defense of Their Worth

Representative work: “Dad Is Certain”

The poem presents four instances of the phrase “they actually say,” revealing negative judgments from the outside world. It then responds with four repetitions of “Dad is certain,” establishing a new standard of value for children covered in mud, dressed in coarse cloth, barefoot, and unskilled in ornate speech.

Subject characteristics

• A contrasting structure: The stigmatization imposed by outsiders directly conflicts with the father’s affirmation.
• Redefining beauty and dignity: Mud does not mean dirtiness, simplicity does not mean vulgarity, and a lack of verbal sophistication does not mean inferiority.
• Moving from paternal protection toward self-identity: The final line calls for “a self-respect that has nothing to do with inferiority or arrogance,” taking the poem beyond paternal affection to a discussion of human dignity.

The deeper meaning of this poem lies in its rejection of urban lifestyles, outward adornment, and verbal skill as the sole standards by which people are judged. Genuine self-respect requires neither imitating others to prove one’s worth nor belittling others to establish it.

Category Four: Rural History and Intergenerational Transmission

Representative work: “A Map of Sweet Potatoes”

Through the repeated pattern “Dad received from Grandpa… just as Grandpa received from Great-Grandpa…,” the poem connects three generations through the hoe, the carrying pole, and spoken admonitions, presenting rural labor, family memory, and historical transmission.

Subject characteristics

• Establishing identification with the land through a crop: The everyday image of sweet potatoes is elevated into a symbol of Taiwanese farmers’ experiences of survival and their memories of the land.
• Recording history through physical labor: Hoeing, carrying loads, and speaking represent practical labor, the burdens of life, and the transmission of experience.
• Connecting family history with collective history: “All the sorrow and glory” and “the troubled history” transform rural life from a personal recollection into a shared historical experience.
• Maintaining cultural identity through admonition: “My children, do not forget” turns past hardships into historical education for the next generation.

The poem’s important characteristic is that it brings history back from abstract dates and events to the hands, shoulders, footprints, and everyday labor of ancestors. Identification with the land is not merely an emotion; it also involves understanding how previous generations survived and endured hardship.

Category Five: Life Education and Personal Growth

Representative work: “Growing Up”

The poem presents three kinds of formative environments—“without applause,” “without toys,” and “without embellishment”—and considers the character traits children may develop as adults. It concludes by contrasting wild grasses with exotic flowers praised by crowds.

Subject characteristics

• Building an argument through parallelism: Three similar sentence patterns establish clear distinctions among different conditions of growing up.
• Transforming living conditions into character education: Growing up without applause may teach people not to seize attention to prove themselves; growing up without toys may teach them not to treat others as instruments; growing up without embellishment may teach them to respect hard work and appreciate what others contribute.
• Using grass as a symbol of value: Unnoticed by others, grass nevertheless possesses tenacious vitality, symbolizing the resilience and dignity of ordinary people.

This poem does not simply praise poverty. Instead, it attempts to explain how a person’s formative environment can influence the way they view themselves and others. Its educational philosophy values humility, gratitude, respect, and inner strength rather than external applause or material advantages.

Category Six: Rural Labor and the Philosophy of Practice

Representative work: “I Will Not Discuss These Things with You”

The poet refuses to remain within abstract debates about poetry, life, and society. He repeatedly invites the other person to leave the study and enter the fields to observe seedlings growing, river water irrigating the land, and farmers working in the sweat of their brows.

Subject characteristics

• Expressing a position through repetition: “I will not discuss these things with you” and “Please leave the study” establish the poem’s central rhythm.
• Contrasting the abstract with the concrete: The study symbolizes conceptual debate, while the fields reveal actual life processes and experiences of labor.
• Transforming natural scenes into practical knowledge: Seedlings, river water, and farmers are all engaged in ongoing activity. Through these images, the poet reminds readers that thought must remain in contact with life.

The poem does not reject theory or reflection; rather, it questions empty talk detached from reality. It proposes a philosophy of practice: understanding poetry, life, and society requires more than verbal argument. It also requires approaching real people and the land.

Category Seven: Ecological Conservation and Environmental Ethics

Representative work: “A Promise to the Trees”

Beginning with tree planting in early spring, the poem depicts coastal windbreak forests, large trees, birds, children, and elderly people. It then opposes the spread of concrete and desertification, concluding with the care of saplings and a promise to a verdant future.

Subject characteristics

• Expressing environmental responsibility through tree planting: Rather than making an abstract appeal to protect nature, the poem presents concrete actions such as planting, caring for, and accompanying trees.
• Integrating trees into social life: Trees shelter travelers, provide habitats for birds, allow children to play, and offer elderly people a place to rest. They therefore possess both ecological value and public-space value.
• Highlighting environmental crises through contrast: Generous soil and upright trunks stand in sharp contrast to rigid concrete and expanding deserts.
• Concluding with intergenerational transmission: “Passing them on from one generation to the next” makes tree planting more than an immediate greening project; it becomes a promise to future generations.

The poem elevates ecological conservation into an ethical question concerning shared life. Humanity does not merely use natural resources; it also has a responsibility to protect the habitats of other living beings and preserve the conditions necessary for future generations to continue living.

Category Eight: Land Ethics and Intergenerational Justice

Representative work: “The Land Has Never Belonged to Us”

Beginning with the question of land ownership, the poem argues that human beings only borrow the land temporarily and must protect it before passing it on to the next generation. It then extends this idea to birds, fish, beasts, and the living beings inhabiting different landscapes, before criticizing greed and limitless development.

Subject characteristics

• Establishing an ethical proposition through negation: “The land has never belonged / to you, nor to me” directly challenges the idea that land is an absolute form of private property.
• Moving beyond anthropocentrism toward a community of life: Birds, fish, beasts, and the inhabitants of different landscapes are all temporary residents.
• Reassessing the value of land through different timescales: The history of life spanning hundreds of millions of years contrasts with the brevity of human life, revealing the limits of contemporary claims to land ownership.
• Moving from environmental ethics to intergenerational justice: “No one has the right / to deprive the next generation of its future” elevates land protection into a responsibility toward descendants.

The central idea of this poem is that the value of land cannot be measured solely through economic figures, and the rights of people living today cannot take precedence over the right of other living beings and future generations to survive.

Its difference from “A Promise to the Trees” lies in its emphasis on ethical principles concerning land ownership and intergenerational responsibility, whereas the latter focuses on how ecological conservation can be practiced through concrete action.

Category Nine: Environmental Protest and the Responsibility of Intellectuals

Representative work: “I Can Only Write a Poem for You”

The poem takes a wetland where rivers meet the ocean as its setting. It depicts fiddler crabs, mudskippers, migratory birds, white dolphins, and the lives of farmers and fishers. It then identifies the environmental destruction that may result from petrochemical development and concludes by reflecting on both the power and the limitations of poetry when confronted with real-world interests.

Subject characteristics

• Establishing what must be protected through ecological detail: Wetland creatures, white dolphins, farmers, and fishers give the environmental issue concrete living substance.
• Exposing the irony of development rhetoric: The banner called “Development” contrasts with restricted views, smoke and dust, and drought, questioning how the benefits of development are distributed.
• Expressing anger through forceful imagery: The poet wishes his lines could be forged into bullets or swords, conveying anxiety and indignation in the face of environmental crises.
• Deepening the poem’s mission through self-examination: “I can only restrain myself, again and again, / writing a sorrowful and useless poem” expresses the creator’s predicament: knowing that words cannot directly stop destruction, yet still feeling compelled to speak.

This is not merely a poem about environmental conservation; it is also a socially critical poem with a strong public dimension. It asks what responsibility poets, intellectuals, and silent members of the public should bear when economic development, political power, and the interests of a privileged few threaten the environment they share.

The sense of helplessness in the poem does not signify surrender. Instead, it reveals the contradiction inherent in literature’s engagement with reality: poetry cannot directly replace laws, policies, or collective action, but it can preserve the experiences of threatened lives and expose the costs concealed by development rhetoric.

2. Five Common Characteristics Derived from the Nine Poems

1. Rural Life as the Foundation of Thought

Roads, fields, sweet potatoes, hoes, carrying poles, trees, and wetlands are not merely decorative scenery. They are concrete objects that carry lived experience, cultural identity, and judgments about values.

2. Extending from Personal Affection to Public Ethics

“The Burden” focuses on family responsibility, “Dad Is Certain” on personal dignity, and “A Map of Sweet Potatoes” on historical transmission. These concerns eventually extend to the shared destiny of the land, the ecosystem, and the next generation.

3. Frequent Use of Contrast and Repetition

The city and the countryside, outside judgments and a father’s convictions, exotic flowers and grass, land and economic figures, and development slogans and environmental costs create sharp contrasts in thought. Parallelism and repetition give the arguments rhythm and persuasive force.

4. Creating Intimacy Through Colloquial Language, Direct Address, and Plain Statements

Expressions such as “Dad,” “My children,” and “I will take you there” turn the poet’s position into direct dialogue. This approach does not pursue obscure or difficult vocabulary; instead, it emphasizes the sensory immediacy of lived experience and the clarity of thought.

5. Gradually Moving from Lyricism to Public Criticism

The first half of the selection focuses more on families, children, ancestors, and rural life. The latter half confronts ecological destruction, development interests, and intergenerational justice more directly. Poetry thus expands from personal emotion into an ethical interrogation of social institutions.

3. The Relationships Among the Subjects of the Nine Poems: From Individual Life to Land Ethics

First level: Individuals and families

“The Burden,” “Dad Is Certain,” and “Growing Up.”

Second level: The rural homeland and history

“The Road,” “A Map of Sweet Potatoes,” and “I Will Not Discuss These Things with You.”

Third level: Nature and ecology

“A Promise to the Trees” and “The Land Has Never Belonged to Us.”

Fourth level: Social criticism and intergenerational responsibility

“I Can Only Write a Poem for You.”

This framework is an analytical organization based on the thematic relationships among the nine poems, rather than an arrangement explicitly specified in the original manuscript. The levels also overlap. Family responsibility can extend into intergenerational responsibility, rural history can connect with land ethics, and environmental criticism can return to the poet’s personal emotions and lived experience.

4. Conclusion: The Core Spirit of Wu Sheng’s Rural Poetry

These nine works reveal three particularly important directions in Wu Sheng’s rural poetry.

First, the rural homeland is not a nostalgic backdrop but the starting point for judgments about values. Rural life gives the poet a concrete position from which to observe labor, family affection, dignity, and modernization. “The Road” criticizes the unchecked expansion of civilization, while “A Map of Sweet Potatoes” preserves the history of farmers whose experiences have been overlooked.

Second, nature is not merely a resource to be admired or developed; it is a living environment that humanity must protect collectively. “A Promise to the Trees” establishes ecological responsibility through the act of planting trees, while “The Land Has Never Belonged to Us” goes further by rejecting humanity’s absolute possession of the land and proposing ethical obligations that extend across generations.

Third, poetry does not merely express emotion; it must also confront injustice in the real world. “I Can Only Write a Poem for You” places an environmental crisis alongside the poet’s sense of helplessness, highlighting both the limitations of literature and the necessity of continuing to speak.

If the shared spirit of these nine poems were to be summarized in one sentence, it would be this:

Wu Sheng begins with farmers’ hands, a father’s heart, and the fate of the land, transforming rural writing into an enduring concern for human dignity, the value of nature, and the right of future generations to survive.

II. Classification and Analysis of the Narrative Characteristics of Wu Sheng’s Poetry

—From Narrative Perspective, Temporal Structure, the Construction of Situations, and Ethical Discourse

In this study, I use the nine poems included in this collection as my primary texts and analyze, from the perspective of narratology, how the works arrange narrators, characters, events, time, space, and emotional transitions. Here, “narrative” refers not only to poems with complete storylines but also to the ways poets organize lived experience, arrange images, and develop ideas, enabling readers to gradually understand a work’s deeper meaning through concrete situations.

These nine poems by Wu Sheng do not all adopt traditional storytelling methods. Some construct miniature stories from people’s lived experiences; others establish historical narratives through generational memory; still others advance ideas through repetition, contrast, and argument. Therefore, the analysis must distinguish among “event-based narrative,” “life-course narrative,” “spatial transformation narrative,” and “argumentative narrative,” rather than treating every work as a narrative poem with a complete plot.

1. Analysis of Narrative Types

Category One: Advancing the Narrative Through Everyday Events

1. “The Burden”: From a Record of Daily Life to Emotional Transformation

Among the nine poems, “The Burden” has one of the clearest narrative structures based on everyday life.

The poem begins with the evening after work. The father occasionally looks at the sunset but no longer stays to admire it. The scene then shifts to the middle of the night after overtime. Although the father sees the starry sky, he no longer loses himself in it. These two everyday episodes are connected through the children’s expectant faces and sleeping expressions, eventually leading to a reflection on the father’s responsibilities in life.

Stage One: Everyday Life

Commuting, working overtime, and looking at the sunset and stars.

Stage Two: An Emotional Shift

The father turns his attention away from natural scenery and toward his children’s expectations and sleeping faces.

Stage Three: Affirmation of Life’s Meaning

Everyday labor is reinterpreted as “the heaviest, yet sweetest, burden.”

This poem has three narrative characteristics.

First, it uses the passage of time instead of a complex plot. Evening, late night, and the daily commute establish a recurring rhythm of life. No dramatic external event occurs, yet the accumulation of ordinary moments gradually reveals the father’s responsibilities.

Second, it uses details instead of direct explanation. The poet does not begin by declaring how great paternal love is. Instead, he describes how the father no longer lingers over the sunset or loses himself in the stars, allowing readers to understand his feelings through his actions.

Third, the ending reinterprets the preceding life experiences. The work and fatigue introduced at the beginning might initially be understood as sacrifices imposed by life. By the end, however, they acquire the meaning of family affection. The word “burden” thus points in two directions: it represents both the weight of responsibility and the sweetness of life.

From a narratological perspective, this is an emotional narrative that moves from concrete actions toward inner meaning. Its plot is simple, yet it contains a complete psychological transition.

2. “The Road”: Constructing a Narrative of Decline Through Spatial Transformation

“The Road” does not center on the experiences of a particular character. Instead, it makes the road itself the narrative axis of the entire poem.

Urban roads extend into the countryside, and the rural community gradually acquires a new luster. Machines then drown out the moonlight and starlight, while the villagers’ original leisurely pace is replaced by television. Finally, the road remains, but its meaning is reconnected to the image of “leading to the cemetery of my hometown.”

One narrative choice deserves particular attention: the poet does not directly announce that the countryside has declined. Instead, he allows readers to witness a sequence of changes and then reconsider the meaning of the road at the end.

Its narrative formula is:

An external presence enters → the living environment changes → traditional ways of life recede → a symbolic conclusion.

The “road” gradually shifts from an initial symbol of modernization into a symbol of cultural decline. The “cemetery” at the end does not merely identify a location; it retroactively alters readers’ understanding of the preceding text, producing an ironic conclusion.

“The Road” can therefore be regarded as a narrative that substitutes spatial transformation for the fate of an individual character. What truly changes is not the road itself but the world of life into which the road intrudes.

Category Two: Advancing the Narrative Through Relationships and Conflicting Viewpoints

3. “Dad Is Certain”: Dialogic Narrative and the Dialectics of Values

This poem does not directly depict a concrete conversation between the father and his children, yet it establishes an implicit conflict of viewpoints. Two positions are represented: “they,” who judge rural children according to external standards, and “Dad,” who insists on affirming the children’s worth.

The poem’s structure can be divided into two stages.

Stage One: Judgments from the Outside World. Mud is considered dirty; the inability to speak a foreign language is considered stupidity; coarse clothing and bare feet are considered uncouth; and an inability to use ornate language is taken as evidence of inferiority.

Stage Two: The Father’s Rebuttal. Through the repeated phrase “Dad is certain,” the speaker reaffirms the children’s purity, naturalness, and dignity, ultimately urging them to uphold “a self-respect that has nothing to do with inferiority or arrogance.”

This narrative depends not on the characters’ external actions but on the conflict between different value systems.

From a narratological perspective, “they” constitute a collective character without individual names. This treatment turns prejudice from the personal opinion of a single individual into a broadly prevalent mechanism of social judgment. By contrast, “Dad” is a narrating figure with an explicit position. He not only protects the children but also redefines what constitutes beauty and dignity.

It is worth noting that the ending does not merely comfort the children. Instead, it shifts the narrative focus from the father’s affirmation to the children’s need to maintain their own convictions. In other words, the father’s words are only the starting point; the real objective of the narrative is to help the children develop their own standards of judgment.

4. “A Map of Sweet Potatoes”: Intergenerational Narrative and Collective Memory

“A Map of Sweet Potatoes” is the poem in this collection with the most prominent intergenerational narrative.

Through the repeated pattern “Dad received from Grandpa… just as Grandpa received from Great-Grandpa…,” the poet connects ancestors, fathers, and children in an unbroken chain of time. Here, time does not merely refer to chronological succession; it represents the transmission of labor, practical wisdom, and historical memory.

First Line of Transmission: Tools of Labor

The hoe and carrying pole embody farmers’ physical labor and give history a tangible, material form.

Second Line of Transmission: Lived Experience

“All the sorrow and glory” transforms the labor experiences of individuals and families into collective memory.

Third Line of Transmission: Historical Narration

The ancestors’ spoken recollections and admonitions extend personal memory into “the troubled history” and pass it on to the next generation.

This poem has three narrative characteristics.

First, it combines retrospective movement with continuity. The poem begins with the contemporary father, looks back to the lives of Grandpa and Great-Grandpa, and then returns to the father’s admonition to his children. The past is not a history that has ended; it is an experience that continues to leave traces in contemporary life.

Second, history is presented through the body rather than through abstract dates. Rough hands, shoulders hard as stone, and heavy footprints enable readers to understand farmers’ circumstances through their laboring bodies.

Third, the narrative carries an ethical responsibility toward memory. “My children, do not forget” turns the poem from recollection into admonition. The poet fears not merely that later generations may lack historical knowledge but that they may sever their ties to their ancestors.

Thus, “A Map of Sweet Potatoes” is not only a family narrative but also a narrative of collective history. It makes farmers’ lived experiences part of history, challenging the assumption that only powerful people or official historical records have the authority to represent the past.

Category Three: Constructing Narratives Through Allegory, Guidance, and the Development of Ideas

5. “Growing Up”: An Allegorical Narrative That Derives Character Development from Formative Conditions

“Growing Up” does not depict a particular child’s concrete experiences from childhood to adulthood. Instead, it uses three hypothetical formative conditions to explore the possible development of character.

Its narrative sequence is as follows:

1. An environment without applause is connected to not needing to seize attention to prove one’s worth.
2. An environment without toys is connected to not treating other people as instruments.
3. An environment without embellishment is connected to respecting hard work and learning gratitude.
4. Finally, the contrast between exotic flowers and grass presents the poet’s understanding of the value of life.

This is a narrative that derives possible outcomes from formative conditions and can also be described as an allegorical narrative of growth.

Its distinctive feature is that the poet does not depict growth through the psychological changes of a single character. Instead, he transforms formative environments into a universal proposition about life. Grass becomes the poem’s central symbol: it attracts little attention, yet grows tenaciously in ordinary surroundings.

From a narratological perspective, however, it is important to recognize that this reasoning represents the poet’s value proposition rather than a strict law of causation. Growing up without applause or toys does not necessarily produce good character. The poem’s actual emphasis is that people can develop respect and gratitude without relying on external advantages.

6. “I Will Not Discuss These Things with You”: Guided Narrative and a Shift in Perspective

The narrator of this poem assumes an explicit guiding role. He repeatedly refuses to discuss poetry, life, and society, then invites the other person to leave the study and enter the fields.

Two character positions are implied in the poem.

The Guide: Someone who knows what he wants the other person to see and actively directs the process of observation.

The Person Being Guided: Someone who has lived in the city for a long time and is accustomed to abstract debate, but is now invited to reconnect with the land and labor.

The poem advances not through conflict between events but through a change in the way the world is observed.

An important feature of this narrative is that movement through space simultaneously represents movement in thought.

Moving from the study to the fields is not merely a geographical change; it marks a shift from conceptual debate to direct experience. Through concrete subjects such as seedlings, river water, and farmers, the poet reorganizes the order in which readers understand poetry, life, and society.

This also demonstrates that Wu Sheng’s poetry does not necessarily require a complete storyline. As long as the narrator can arrange a process of observation and gradually change the reader’s understanding, the poem can develop a narrative with a clear direction.

7. “A Promise to the Trees”: A Narrative of Collective Action and Future Commitment

“A Promise to the Trees” uses “we” as its narrative subject, distinguishing it from the preceding works centered on a father or an individual guide.

The poem begins with collective tree planting, then expands to coastal windbreak forests and large trees in towns and villages. It describes how trees provide places for birds to nest, children to play, and elderly people to rest. The middle section turns to rejecting the spread of concrete and desertification. Finally, the poem returns to caring for saplings, making a commitment to the future, and passing that commitment from generation to generation.

Its narrative sequence can be summarized as follows:

Collective action begins → the life trees can support is imagined → environmental threats are confronted → the responsibility to protect nature is reaffirmed → the commitment is passed on to the next generation.

This is a future-oriented narrative centered on collective action.

It is important to note that “we” in the poem does not merely describe events that have already taken place. It also functions as a call to action, incorporating readers into a community that shares responsibility. The ending, “passing them on from one generation to the next,” makes tree planting more than an immediate environmental activity; it becomes a commitment that spans time.

The narrative focus, therefore, is not on recording a complete tree-planting event but on establishing a vision of the future that can be put into practice.

8. “The Land Has Never Belonged to Us”: An Argumentative Narrative from a Philosophical Proposition to an Ethical Conclusion

The narrative characteristics of this poem differ from those of the preceding works. It contains neither clearly defined relationships among characters nor a continuous sequence of events. Instead, it gradually broadens the scope of reflection through a series of propositions.

First, the poet asserts that the land does not belong to any individual and is only temporarily borrowed by the people living today. He then describes how birds, fish, and beasts inhabit their respective environments, before turning to the harm inflicted on the land by humanity. The poem ultimately concludes that no one has the right to deprive the next generation of its future.

This structure can be understood as an argumentative narrative: through the progressive development of ideas, the poet leads readers through a process of intellectual reasoning.

Its progression consists of four levels:

• Redefining ownership: Human beings are temporary users of the land, not its absolute owners.
• Expanding the scope of life: Humanity is not the only form of life that inhabits the land.
• Examining contemporary behavior: Economic interests cannot justify brutal harm to nature.
• Establishing intergenerational ethics: People living today must not deprive future generations of the conditions necessary for survival in pursuit of their own interests.

The lines “We who are alive today / will depart tomorrow” place the limited duration of human life alongside the long history of the land, giving the ethical question temporal depth.

The narrative momentum of this poem comes not from events unfolding but from ideas expanding: from individual ownership to a community of life, and then to intergenerational justice.

Category Four: Constructing Narratives Through Crisis, Irony, and Self-Reflection

9. “I Can Only Write a Poem for You”: Environmental Crisis and the Narrator’s Self-Reflection

This is the poem with the most complex narrative layers among the nine works.

It depicts not only an environmental crisis but also how the poet understands, experiences, and responds to that crisis. Consequently, the poem contains two narrative strands: external events and internal psychological experience.

First Layer: Establishing the Existing World of Life

The meeting of rivers and the ocean, wetland creatures, white dolphins, and generations of farmers and fishers together form a space of natural and historical value.

Second Layer: The Arrival of Crisis

A petrochemical complex and development plans draw near, placing the previously open wetland within a conflict between economic interests and environmental destruction.

Third Layer: Questioning Public Responsibility

Through the lines “How should this account / be presented / in an environmental impact assessment?” the poet transforms the environmental issue into a question of responsibility, challenging the gap between development slogans and their actual costs.

Fourth Layer: The Poet’s Self-Reflection

The poet wishes his lines could become bullets or swords, yet acknowledges that words cannot directly intimidate his opponents. In the end, he can only recite his lines repeatedly and call out to Heaven and Earth.

The narrative characteristics of this poem deserve particular attention from four perspectives.

First, it establishes a world that can be lost before presenting the crisis. The opening descriptions of wetland creatures, farmers, fishers, and the tides are not merely introductions to the scenery. Before the threat of development appears, they allow readers to understand the value of life in this place. When the industrial complex approaches, readers therefore sense not merely a change in land use but the possible disappearance of an entire world of living.

Second, irony creates narrative conflict. “Development” and “prosperity” normally carry positive meanings, yet the poet places them alongside restricted views, smoke and dust, drought, and threats to the survival of farmers and fishers. This approach makes the conflict more than a simple opposition between environmental protection and development. It also reveals the contradiction between claims made in the name of the public interest and the actual distribution of benefits.

Third, the narrator becomes part of the story. The poet does not remain an external commentator throughout. He directly expresses the impulse to turn his lines into weapons and openly admits that he cannot do so. The narrator’s emotional changes thus become an important internal thread running through the poem.

Fourth, the poem concludes with an unresolved contradiction. The poet acknowledges that words cannot directly stop development, yet he refuses to abandon the act of speaking. Rather than resolving the problem in the traditional sense, the ending establishes an ongoing ethical action: even without any guarantee of success, testimony must still be preserved.

From a narratological perspective, the power of this poem comes from its double crisis. Externally, the wetland and the farmers and fishers face possible destruction. Internally, the poet doubts his own ability to speak effectively. Their combination allows the poem to transcend ordinary environmental description and become a reflection on both the possibilities and the limitations of literature’s intervention in public life.

VI. A Comprehensive Analysis: Six Narrative Characteristics of Wu Sheng’s Poetry

Although the nine poems discussed above employ different narrative approaches, they share six identifiable characteristics.

1. Replacing Complex Plots with Everyday Experience

Wu Sheng can construct a narrative without arranging numerous characters, conflicts, and plot twists. “The Burden” centers on a father’s daily commute and care for his children; “A Map of Sweet Potatoes” establishes history through the labor of three generations; and “The Road” constructs a sequence of events through the changes brought about by a road entering the countryside.

The key to this narrative approach is organizing actions, objects, and changes in everyday life into a meaningful process.

2. Establishing Narrative Rhythm Through Repetition

Sentence patterns such as “Ever since…,” “Dad received from Grandpa…,” “I will not discuss…,” and “Dad is certain…” serve not only as rhetorical repetition but also as tools for organizing the narrative.

Repetition helps readers recognize the relationships between different stages and perceive the accumulation of meaning. In particular, the repeated use of “Ever since” in “The Road” progressively develops the changes brought about by the road, while the repeated generational patterns in “A Map of Sweet Potatoes” connect different individuals into a shared history.

3. Connecting Individuals, Families, and Society Through Temporal Structure

Wu Sheng’s poetry often places present-day life within a much longer timescale.

“The Burden” moves from a father’s daily life to the care he received from his grandparents. “A Map of Sweet Potatoes” looks back from the present to the ancestors and then turns toward the children. “The Land Has Never Belonged to Us,” meanwhile, places the brief lives of contemporary people within the history of life spanning hundreds of millions of years.

Time in these works is therefore not merely the background against which events occur; it is also a source of ethical meaning. People must remember where they came from and consider what they will leave behind.

4. Presenting Changes in Thought Through Changes in Space

Wu Sheng often uses concrete spaces to convey abstract ideas.

• “The Road”: The road enters the countryside, revealing the changes in everyday life brought about by modernization.
• “I Will Not Discuss These Things with You”: The movement from the study to the fields symbolizes a shift from abstract debate to practical engagement with life.
• “I Can Only Write a Poem for You”: The movement from an expansive wetland to the threat of industrial development reveals how public space can be taken away.

Space is not a static background but an important force driving the narrative forward. Changes in place also alter how characters and readers understand the world.

5. Guiding Readers Through the Narrator’s Explicit Position

These nine poems rarely attempt to conceal the narrator’s values. In “Dad Is Certain,” the father defends his children. In “I Will Not Discuss These Things with You,” the narrator actively guides the reader into the fields. In “The Land Has Never Belonged to Us,” the poetic voice directly articulates an ethic of responsibility toward the land.

This narrative approach clearly guides the reader, but that does not mean the poems offer only one-sided moral instruction. When the narrator’s position encounters real-world difficulties, as in the sense of helplessness expressed in “I Can Only Write a Poem for You,” the work creates room for self-examination, allowing the narrator’s own position to be scrutinized.

6. Using the Ending to Transform Meaning Rather Than Merely Conclude Events

Wu Sheng is skilled at turning the final section of a poem into a key that enables readers to reinterpret what came before.

What these endings share is their transformation of concrete experiences into broader intellectual meanings. An ending does not merely finish a story; it determines how readers should reinterpret the poem as a whole.

VII. An Overall Assessment from the Perspective of Narratology

From a more rigorous narratological perspective, these nine poems by Wu Sheng do not excel through complex plots, large casts of characters, or the flow of psychological consciousness. Rather, they excel at organizing everyday life, family memory, rural spaces, and public crises into meaningful processes with clear directions.

Their narrative characteristics can be summarized at three levels:

Micro level: Concrete situations are established through the life experiences of fathers, children, ancestors, farmers, and other figures.

Meso level: Spaces such as villages, fields, roads, trees, and wetlands reveal changes in ways of life and social environments.

Macro level: Individual experiences expand into historical memory, land ethics, ecological responsibility, and intergenerational justice.

This narrative approach makes the rural homeland more than an object of description; it becomes the foundation upon which ideas unfold. The people and landscapes in these poems matter not only because they evoke emotions but also because they carry broader historical and ethical questions.

In conclusion, the narrative power of Wu Sheng’s poetry lies in its ability to use the most ordinary materials of everyday life to sustain a far-reaching development of thought: from a father’s responsibilities to a family’s memory; from changes in a rural road to the transformation of an entire world of living; and from the fate of a piece of land to humanity’s ethical responsibilities toward future generations. This is the most significant narrative characteristic shared by these nine poems.

III. The Aesthetic Characteristics of Wu Sheng’s Poetry

1. The Aesthetics of Rural Realism

Wu Sheng draws on Taiwan’s rural communities, pastoral landscapes, and farmers’ lives to portray the realities of the land, its people, and the changes of the times.

2. The Aesthetics of Labor and Life

Through farming, physical labor, and everyday activities, he affirms the value of work and highlights the dignity and resilience of ordinary lives.

3. The Aesthetics of Simplicity and Naturalness

He employs plain, natural language close to everyday speech without excessive embellishment, using lived experience to give his poetry a sense of authenticity and emotional power.

4. The Aesthetics of Everyday Lyricism

Beginning with family affection, domestic life, and the details of daily experience, he transforms ordinary moments into profound emotional expression, creating a lyrical style that is restrained yet sincere.

5. The Aesthetics of Imagery and Symbolism

Concrete images such as roads, land, sweet potatoes, and trees convey deeper meanings associated with personal growth, cultural memory, identification with the land, and the transmission of experience between generations.

6. The Aesthetics of Ecological Ethics

Concerned with the survival of the land and the natural environment, he elevates the beauty of nature into an ethical concern for environmental protection, the coexistence of living beings, and future generations.

7. The Aesthetics of Critical Reflection

Through contrasts between tradition and modernity, nature and development, and ideals and reality, he reflects on the social problems arising from rural transformation and modernization.

Summary: Wu Sheng’s poetry takes rural life as its aesthetic foundation, transforming the land, rural communities, labor, and family affection into poetic images imbued with the depth of lived experience. Through language that is simple, unpretentious, and emotionally rich, he portrays farmers’ experiences of survival, family ethics, and emotional bonds with the land. Everyday life thus becomes a source of poetry, while individual lives become connected with the collective memory of rural communities.

Artistically, he does not deliberately pursue ornate rhetoric. Instead, through concrete details of everyday life, sincere emotions, and restrained lyricism, he develops an aesthetic style that is natural and unadorned, profound and inwardly composed. Furthermore, his rural writing goes beyond nostalgia and praise. Beginning with identification with the land, it extends into reflections on ecological conservation, the plight of rural communities, and social structures, demonstrating an enduring concern for the natural environment, vulnerable lives, and social justice.

The central aesthetic principle of Wu Sheng’s poetry therefore lies in using the land to sustain life, affirming human dignity through labor, deepening human relationships through family affection, and extending the writing of rural experience from personal emotion and local identity to ecological awareness and social criticism.