Ode to the Beginning of Winter: Selected Poems

Introduction by Peter Hughes

Yu Hai-Sui is well known as Provost and Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University of Leeds. He has long been recognised as outstanding in the field of Geotechnical Engineering. His explicitly international perspective, together with the nature of his scientific field, may provide the reader with one set of contexts for his literary work. Geomechanics investigates, models and predicts how the materials of the earth – the soil, water and rocks – behave in the context of human structures such as buildings, roads, railways, airports, dams, tunnels, embankments, reservoirs, channels, mines and off shore constructions. To understand this complex range of interactions between the natural and the constructed involves a profound knowledge of geology, hydrology and geophysics. Poetry too could be said to be a ‘complex range of interactions between the natural and the constructed’. And indeed in Yu Hai-Sui’s poetry we witness the ongoing negotiations between self and society, sense impressions and the structures of the literary tradition. We witness the forces that lead to isolation and destruction, the effects of time and natural disasters. But we also recognise the enduring values of civilisation, art, love and friendship. It is of great interest and significance that the first poem represented in this collection involves a visit to the residence of one of the greatest of all Chinese poets, Du Fu (712-770 AD). This first poem, ‘The Thatched Cottage of Du Fu’, expresses both a sense of enormous separation from the great Tang Dynasty poet, and a vivid sense of continuity as well. In this celebration of his illustrious predecessor, Yu Hai-Sui cleverly echoes some of Du Fu’s own concerns and characteristic techniques. We have significant features of the landscape, the birds, details of season and weather, and traces of the ravages of time. Yet transcending all the changes we are presented with art’s enduring glow, the presence of poetry which can sometimes be, to quote Horace, ‘more lasting than bronze’. So at the start of this collection we witness Yu Hai- Sui acknowledging and paying tribute to his important master, and we are reminded of the great tradition within which this contemporary poet writes. Du Fu is not the only poet to be acknowledged in these poems. The international perspective alluded to at the beginning of this short introduction is evidenced by the range of writers mentioned in these poems. There is reference to Shelley, Celan, Eliot and Hölderlin here too. There is also mention of the important 20th-century Chinese poet Zhang Zao, who sadly died of cancer at the young age of 48 in 2010. Like Yu Hai-Sui, Zhang Zao was open to a wide range of international poetry from different periods and we can feel the affinity between them in ‘Tübingen’, an affectionate tribute to both Zhang Zao himself and Hölderlin. In this text the poet quotes from Zhang Zao’s famous poem ‘In the Mirror’, and fuses a bond between the great traditions of Chinese and European poetry. Thus Yu Hai-Sui invokes an international context for his own literary persona and poetic practice. He also makes it clear that he draws on poetry from many different historical periods for inspiration.

So far we have reflected on the literary heritage and affiliations of Yu Hai-Sui yet it is important to remember how science is also crucial to his sense of the world. This istrue professionally, of course. We recall that he is Professor of Geotechnical Engineering at Leeds. But it is also true in a more general sense, through the intuition and conviction that scientists help to move the world forwards and transform our vision of the universe and our place in it. In these poems we are reminded of the names of various figures who have made extraordinary contributions to developments in the sciences. Stephen Hawking, for example, appears alongside famous literary figures in the poem ‘Impressions of Oxford’. There is also an entire poem dedicated to the famous theoretical physicist and cosmologist, ‘To Hawking’, in which he is grouped with Einstein and Newton. The latter was famously one of Hawking’s most illustrious predecessors at Cambridge. As well as mentioning these towering figures Yu Hai-Sui often invokes scientific processes in his poems. Thus in ‘The Traces of Wind’ we meet the phenomena of warmer air rising, and cold air rushing in to take its place. Then the warmer air cooling and descending in a never-ending cycle. These ceaseless processes are described in order to explain and celebrate how the world can never stand still but, like us, is restless and dynamic. Then in ‘The Moths’ there is a reference to the ‘Archimedean spiral’ to describe how moths, mistaking naked flames for innocent lights, may plunge to their deaths ‘spinning into the abyss’. Naturally there is a hint of deeper symbolism here too, a subtle warning to humanity to steer clear of fatal error. In ‘Lightning’ the evocation of a thunderstorm is couched in terms of negatively and positively charged particles, as well as in more traditionally poetic phrases. The reader is made to understand that scientific perspectives are as necessary as literary and emotional ones when exploring and registering our feelings about the world.In this poetry the reader registers those two great oppositional forces: the relentless passage of time, and the human urge to construct works that may withstand time’s ravages. The road and the bridge, the painting and the poem, how shall we make them so that they last to serve humanity for as long as possible? Along the way the poems capture the pain of lost relationships, of faded beauty, of the sadness at the heart of human life with its constant awareness of mortality. We are reminded of what Virgil so memorably called ‘lacrimae rerum’, the tears of things. Yet shining through the work we share the lustre of art and of hope, that deep and resilient human hope that has always reached out beyond the horizon towards the edge of knowledge, time and space. As I conclude this introduction to these poems, the James Webb Space Telescope is ready to be launched. This will give us glimpses into the early universe and show us stars and distant phenomena never seen before. I am sure that Yu Hai-Sui will be one of the first to track and respond to its discoveries, both as an engineer and as a poet.

Peter Hughes