China and the West

Xu Zhimo besucht Thomas Hardy.
Xu had a brief discussion with Hardy on Chinese poetry and the importance of metrics. Hardy’s argument on the indispensability of metrical rules to poetry inspired Xu to seriously reconsider his poetic outlook, resulting in a shift from the free-verse style that dominated his first collection ofpoetry (Poems of Zhimo 1925) and this poetic reorientation is seen clarly in his second collection (Feilengcui di yi ye 1927), and continued will into his third and fourth collections.
Hardy asked Xu : "You’ve translated my poems ? How did you do that ? Is Chinese poetry metrical ?"
Xu : "I told him that we used to have only metrical poetry and no such thing as blank verse, but recently… He [Hardy] interrupted me, saying he was in favor of metrical poetry, which was correct by principle. You throw a piece of stone into the lake and ripples spread out in circles. And metrics are the ripples which you cannot forgot… I told him that I liked his poems because they not only have a tight architectural structure but also have veins of thoughts flowing through like an organic whole…" "Yes, organic, yes, organic. A poem ought to be a living thing".