Cambridge festival celebrates the life of Chinese poet Xu Zhimo

The late Chinese poet Xu Zhimo, widely recognized for promoting China's affinity with the university of Cambridge, is being celebrated with an annual festival at his former college in the city this week.

This year's Xu Zhimo Poetry and Art Festival, taking place on August 11 and 12, brings together some of the world's most famous poets and artists at King's College, to celebrate the cultural exchange between the UK, China and other countries which share a close link with Xu's life and work.

Chinese poet Bei Dao reads Xu Zhimo's poem "Farewell to Cambridge" at the reception on 11 Aug.

His poem 'Farewell to Cambridge', written in 1928 when he was revisiting King's College after studying there in the 1920s, is learnt by millions of school-children across China, not only occupying a special place in the modern Chinese imagination, but also offering a reason why Cambridge has become an increasingly strong magnet for many Chinese.

The first and last lines of the poem have been carved into a granite stone which lies at the back of King's College, one of Cambridge's most sought-after tourist attractions.

Alan Macfarlane, chairman of the Cambridge Rivers Project and professor at the University of Cambridge, says the poem has such an impact because, in a few lines, Xu condenses several different kinds of love.

"Love associated with the beautiful willow and water landscape which he had experienced as a child in Haining (an eastern China county) and then found again, when very homesick after a long absence in Cambridge. Love for the newly found world of Romantic British poetry which converted him to becoming a poet, and love for Lin Huiyin (one of Xu's lovers), who was strongly associated with Cambridge.

"All this love is combined with aching loss - saying good-bye - to a place he loved, to memories of early love, and to his own childhood, hopes and dreams," Macfarlane adds.

The festival, jointly organized by the Cambridge Rivers Project and the King's College Development Office, aims to honor the arts of poetry and painting as vital expressions of human dignity, aspiration, originality and hope.

One dimension of the Festival is that the written word and its meanings, the patterns and its textures, the signs and its designs, all come naturally together in the unique Chinese tradition of calligraphy, according to a statement from the King's College.

Speaking at the festival in Cambridge, Liu Zhengcheng, a contemporary Chinese calligrapher, says the festival, taking Xu as a model, with participation of artists from China, the UK and other parts of the world, plays a vital role in deepening and broadening international understanding and in the exchange of ideas, but also in nurturing commonality and peace.

'Gardens' are chosen as the theme of this year's festival. That is because gardens have always been a great inspiration for poetry and many of the greatest poets in the world have written some of their best poems on this subject, says Macfarlane.

As Xu celebrated the natural landscape, the willows and river and clouds, in his famous poem, Macfarlane says, "we are hoping to build a Xu Zhimo memorial garden, mixing the Chinese and British styles of gardening, to be placed somewhere near the stone which commemorates him at the bridge over the River Cam at King's College."

To contact the reporter: wangmingjie@mail.chinadailyuk.com