{"id":19638,"date":"2018-10-12T15:11:47","date_gmt":"2018-10-12T07:11:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/english.hku.hk\/alumni\/?p=19638"},"modified":"2022-08-20T21:33:07","modified_gmt":"2022-08-20T13:33:07","slug":"aubade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/english.hku.hk\/alumni\/19638\/aubade\/","title":{"rendered":"Aubade"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Gloria Dou<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/em>
\nAttente \u00e0 la fen\u00eatre by Marcel Rieder<\/em><\/p>\n

Sunlight through the window
\npane, through the flora-embroidered
\nsheer curtain, upon the window
\nsill, upon the wooden
\ndesk and chair, upon the
\nroses in the glass vase whose flamboyance
\nneeds to be awakened by fresh
\nwater, upon the sky blue
\nbedsheet and the visage
\nthat just bids farewell to
\nnostalgic dreams,
\nas if the figure
\nwould emerge from
\nthe glaring green outside
\nthe window.<\/p>\n

\n

This is a poem I wrote for an introductory poetry writing class during my exchange at Michigan State University in the fall of 2014. For one of the assignments, Professor Marcia Aldrich gave us a few pictures to choose from and then write a poem about. I immediately felt a strong connection with this painting, and the poem was done in one go, as if it was something that had always been waiting to get out of me.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you work in the art industry?\u201d, \u201cAre you a literature student?\u201d; from time to time, I get asked these two questions. Those people have got a point there: I am a gallery hopper, an opera goer and \u2013 occasionally \u2013 a poem writer. I exude a passion for art around people who know me. I am obsessed with Ren\u00e9 Magritte\u2019s and Arthur Rimbaud\u2019s works. Yet it is also true that one\u2019s passion might not necessarily correspond to one’s greatest area of expertise.<\/p>\n

I grew up self-conscious. When I was left on my own, I would indulge myself in literature books, or paint on every piece of blank paper I could find. Nothing engaged me as much as the soft-spoken beauty I found in literature and art. It was ingrained in my mind from an early age that there was no truth except literary truth in this world.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not hard to imagine how my world view had been challenged as I grew older. At certain times, it was even smashed. But I always managed to collect the broken pieces and put them back together, as the pursuit for literary beauty and truth has always been an inalienable part of me.<\/p>\n

I, however, came to the realization that doing art or literature might not be for me. No matter what I read or saw, I would always produce the same kind of utopia with my own pen. It neither penetrated the surface of our life in as intelligent a way as Magritte did, nor was it relatable with as raw a passion as Rimbaud\u2019s. I knew that wouldn’t work.<\/p>\n

As a result, I chose to shift my attention to linguistics, a discipline of study that requires less of the emotional and more of the logical. I was made to look at the world through new lenses. Attempts of discovering meaning through data made me feel secure. When I was drawing trees or doing my stats, my literary self was dormant. I love social media, and thanks to Professor Rodney Jones, my earliest mentor, I learned that doing discourse analysis would be the perfect way to transform my newly discovered passion into a career. While working for one of his projects back at CityU, I was impressed by how fun it was to collect, code and analyze the comments under YouTube videos, as well as by how much they had to reveal about the society we are living in. To me, the kind of work Professor Jones engaged in was practical, meaningful and, most importantly, compelling. It finally led me to undertake a PhD in sociolinguistics at HKU.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

I\u2019m reading very little poetry nowadays, and I haven\u2019t written new verses in months. It is not, however, because I no longer believe in the utopia and soft-spoken beauty I used to find in poetry; it is only because I no longer have to search around for it. When I come across beautifully composed lines, I still stop and marvel, and let out gentle sighs. Poetic truth and beauty is ephemeral but also everlasting, just like the prime of youth. Rimbaud has said it well:<\/p>\n

Oisive jeunesse
\n\u00c0 tout asservie,
\nPar d\u00e9licatesse
\nJ’ai perdu ma vie.
\nAh! que le temps vienne
\nO\u00f9 les c\u0153urs s’\u00e9prennent.<\/p>\n

Published on: October 12, 2018 < Back<\/a> ><\/strong><\/em><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Gloria Dou Attente \u00e0 la fen\u00eatre by Marcel Rieder Sunlight through the window pane, through the flora-embroidered sheer curtain, upon the window sill, upon the wooden desk and chair, upon the roses in the glass vase whose flamboyance needs to be awakened by fresh water, upon the sky blue bedsheet and the visage thatContinue Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28572,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.hku.hk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19638"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.hku.hk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.hku.hk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.hku.hk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.hku.hk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19638"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/english.hku.hk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29027,"href":"https:\/\/english.hku.hk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19638\/revisions\/29027"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.hku.hk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.hku.hk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.hku.hk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.hku.hk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}