Making kin in image and void : poetics of xiangwang in American ideogrammic poetry

Abstract

This dissertation explores the connections and mutual enrichment between a daoistically re-viewed American ideogrammic poetry and the poetics of xiangwang 象罔(image and void/web) deriving from early Chinese and Daoist thought. Tracing the gestation of the poetics of xiangwang in this poetic lineage back to Ezra Pound at his metro moment, when he envisioned a poetic medium both as a “pattern” and a “color”, this study discusses two strands of American ideogrammic poetry that are respectively pattern-minded and color-minded. From the perspective of xiangwang, the former is examined as wang-oriented and a poetry of patterned void, that is, a poetry coauthored by a voided heart-mind and a patterning mechanism, whereas the latter is examined as xiang-oriented and a poetry of imaging the unhewn. This study seeks to demonstrate that these poets, via these two poetic avenues with their own idiosyncrasies, are united in their effort to re-shape the English language into an ideogrammic poetic medium, which, through the Daoist lens, can be read as a language of focus and field.