“The primary thing that I want people to do is look at them and go ‘how pretty.’ It’s like you heard a song and went ‘that sounds nice,’ and then you start thinking about the lyrics afterwards. So the first thing I want is that they are attractive to the eyes.”
This was how Mark Caltonhill described his unique and arresting rebus-like poems, which update the traditional Chinese spring couplet, or chunlian (春聯), with the help of a digital camera.
“Basically they are two stanzas, seven lines in each,” he said. “Seven ideas, seven concepts, seven lines of poetry in each of the two stanzas with lots of correspondence.”
More than a year in the making, the 10 couplets — collectively called The Malarkey Phenomenon — are currently on display and sale at Citizen Cain, a restaurant on Dongfeng Street (東豐街), which will host a reception for the show this Sunday beginning at 1pm. Interspersed among the couplets will be Malarkey’s Amusement Park, a series of playful poems on photographs.
The exhibition also marks the soft launch of Caltonhill’s self-published book of writing, also called Malarkey’s Amusement Park, as well as a call for poetry and verse for a forthcoming compilation of writing by expats living in Taiwan that Caltonhill plans to publish in the summer of next year (submissions can be forwarded to jiyue.publications@gmail.com).
Caltonhill, who has lived in Taiwan on and off since 1992, working as a performer, translator and writer (his book Private Prayers and Public Parades was reviewed on Page 18 of the Nov. 9, 2003 edition of the Taipei Times), employed his considerable knowledge of Taiwanese culture, Chinese characters (he has a master’s degree in Chinese from the University of Edinburgh) and his travels throughout the country to create the couplets, which were printed on rice paper and professionally framed as silk scrolls.
HuHu (湖滬), based on a trip Caltonhill took to Penghu (澎湖), is fairly representative of the hanging scrolls in how the traditional couplet form is altered (digital images replace stylized characters) to investigate or meditate on a variety of themes.
In the couplet, Caltonhill juxtaposes images of Chinese characters either standing alone or in profusion — in one line characters have been spray-painted on a plastic container, in another they are on a menu written on a wall — with images of Penghu.
The second character in the Chinese word for Penghu, hu (湖), forms the first line on the right-hand scroll. The top line of the left-hand scroll is the Chinese character hu (滬), which means weir.
“It is a poem working on two levels,” Caltonhill said. “Going to Penghu and seeing all these things and the human relationship with his environment.”
The visual language that gives the couplets meaning is also what makes them difficult to unravel.
“To decipher the poems you need to know where [pictures of] the characters were taken,” he said.
The references are indeed idiosyncratic, and unless you’ve been to the restaurant or prison wall the images capture, it’s difficult to see any immediate deeper meaning — though Caltonhill pointed out that this was his intention. Written proficiency in Chinese and a deep knowledge of Taiwan’s history are helpful when deciphering the scrolls, so if your Chinese isn’t up to snuff be sure to bring along a friend who can point out the homophones.
Although the “lyrics” are written in Chinese, the visual music reveals a playful understanding of a traditional poetic form that rewards repeated viewing.
Those wishing to submit poetry, lyrics or verse to Caltonhill’s publishing company JiYue Publications (霽月出版社), which he established as a result of his “frustrations trying to get books published in Taiwan and the similar experiences of other writers,” should send submissions to jiyue.publications@gmail.com.
EXHIBITION NOTES:
WHAT: A Double Dose of Malarkey
WHERE: Citizen Cain, 67, Dongfeng St, Taipei City (台北市東豐街67號). Tel: (02) 2708-4557
WHEN: Opening reception on Sunday at 1pm ; exhibit runs through Feb. 28, 2009. Citizen Cain is open daily from 6pm to midnight
May 11 to May 18 The original Taichung Railway Station was long thought to have been completely razed. Opening on May 15, 1905, the one-story wooden structure soon outgrew its purpose and was replaced in 1917 by a grandiose, Western-style station. During construction on the third-generation station in 2017, workers discovered the service pit for the original station’s locomotive depot. A year later, a small wooden building on site was determined by historians to be the first stationmaster’s office, built around 1908. With these findings, the Taichung Railway Station Cultural Park now boasts that it has
Wooden houses wedged between concrete, crumbling brick facades with roofs gaping to the sky, and tiled art deco buildings down narrow alleyways: Taichung Central District’s (中區) aging architecture reveals both the allure and reality of the old downtown. From Indigenous settlement to capital under Qing Dynasty rule through to Japanese colonization, Taichung’s Central District holds a long and layered history. The bygone beauty of its streets once earned it the nickname “Little Kyoto.” Since the late eighties, however, the shifting of economic and government centers westward signaled a gradual decline in the area’s evolving fortunes. With the regeneration of the once
The latest Formosa poll released at the end of last month shows confidence in President William Lai (賴清德) plunged 8.1 percent, while satisfaction with the Lai administration fared worse with a drop of 8.5 percent. Those lacking confidence in Lai jumped by 6 percent and dissatisfaction in his administration spiked up 6.7 percent. Confidence in Lai is still strong at 48.6 percent, compared to 43 percent lacking confidence — but this is his worst result overall since he took office. For the first time, dissatisfaction with his administration surpassed satisfaction, 47.3 to 47.1 percent. Though statistically a tie, for most
In February of this year the Taipei Times reported on the visit of Lienchiang County Commissioner Wang Chung-ming (王忠銘) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and a delegation to a lantern festival in Fuzhou’s Mawei District in Fujian Province. “Today, Mawei and Matsu jointly marked the lantern festival,” Wang was quoted as saying, adding that both sides “being of one people,” is a cause for joy. Wang was passing around a common claim of officials of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the PRC’s allies and supporters in Taiwan — KMT and the Taiwan People’s Party — and elsewhere: Taiwan and
RSS