Tang Dynasty Refrigerator Poetry
Language as play
A bilingual magnetic poetry set consisting of works from three renowned Tang Dynasty poets (Meng Haoran, Jia Dao & Du Fu) — one selected poem from each. Accompanied by a custom-designed and embroidered drawstring bag, and an informational booklet containing the color-coded original poems, author biographies, and historical contexts.
After learning about magnetic or “refrigerator” poetry and acquiring my own Emily Dickinson set, I became enamored by the newfound creativity and tactility it brought into my life — the way its constraints led me to interesting themes and combinations of words that I would not have considered while composing on a notepad or Google Doc.
The magic manifested in multiple ways: I felt less constrained by formality and meticulousness as I moved words here and there; I felt a sudden burst of inspiration as, emerging from my room at 2AM to grab a cold snack, I noticed a different and novel way to convey an idea or image; I saw unique visual patterns emerge as my hands formed the pieces into idiosyncratic jigsaws. Sometimes, one mini-poem would run unintentionally into the one below. Sometimes, I just set out to write to make a poem that would make me laugh!
When I stepped foot into the Stanford GSE’s Makery with the aim of creating an educational project, I landed on the idea of a bilingual magnetic poetry set. I understood this as a way not only to challenge myself in learning to use tools that I never had before, but to build a version of a magnetic set that facilitated language learning, that incorporated (by nature of Chinese characters) a more prominent visual aspect, and that introduced users to a potentially unknown historical genre of poetry. Because each genre and poet has their own style, the end results tend to take on some of the atmosphere of their originators. And if one mixes poets together… well, the possibilities are endless!
In the end, I find the true beauty of this kind of item to be how it makes poetry — that is, creativity! — accessible to all. Everybody can be a poet, when they are given the framework to remix their personal interests in strange but wonderful ways.
