Foreword by the Department of Cultural Affairs, Taipei

Poetry is one of the most precious forms in which culture accumulates. The purpose of a poetry festival, therefore, lies in how it truthfully reflects its times and society. Any approach adopted can become poetry. The path of poetry has no fixed direction, just as light is not blocked by the obstacles before our eyes. The Hong Kong poet Stuart Lau Wai-shing writes: “The nature of light, no matter how straightforward and striving / has its twists and detours in the dream.” As an interdisciplinary festival centered on poetry, the Taipei Poetry Festival seeks to serve as a bridge between cultures and to facilitate dialogue among artistic disciplines. Our path may be straightforward and striving, while there can also be twists and detours. 

Since 2000, Taipei has become a city with its own poetry festival, where voices and languages from both the margins and mainstream meet and exchange. Meanwhile, poetry takes on various artistic forms to respond to, and even disrupt, our lives, demonstrating the vitality of Taiwan as an island of cultural diversity and fusion. The 2025 Taipei Poetry Festival features foreign guest poets from Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Africa with their poems in a variety of languages – including a Spanish poet translating Catalan poetry, an Ecuadorian poet writing in Spanish, and a Palestinian poet writing in Arabic, as well as a Hong Kong poet writing in Cantonese and a Japanese poet writing in Japanese. Alongside them, Taiwanese poets will also present their recent works, together forming a splendid bonfire of poetry. The annual festival itself lasts only two weeks, but the words in the poetry collection will continue to glitter whenever someone reads them, like dim light shining through the dark nights.    

Department of Culture Affairs, Taipei
September, 2025

Preface by the Curator

“There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in.” – This widely celebrated lyric by the legendary Canadian poet-singer Leonard Cohen, in its unique way, soothes the depression caused by imperfect life, the anxiety over a deteriorating world, and the worry about an uncertain future.  Indeed, life is full of impurities. It is not molded as one perfect form, and there will be joints. Over time, joints may become cracks. However, it is when life falls apart that we see the turning point toward new possibilities.  

The French master filmmaker Robert Bresson has also spoken of “cracks” when discussing the essence of arts: “Don't run after poetry. It penetrates unaided through the cracks.”  Although Bresson did not write poems, his simple, elliptical cinematic language is an embodiment of poetry. Running after poetry may lead us toward “poeticness” rather than genuine “poetry.”  For ordinary people, being “poetic” – often associated with an elegant sentiment in language or situations as described – defines what poetry is. However, a true poet is convinced that poetry will come naturally when we live the truth and speak from our hearts.   

The annual mission of conceiving a curatorial theme for the Taipei Poetry Festival is driven by the aspiration to keep pace with the times, serving as the voice of an era and drums in the night. Poetry has its delicate and sensitive core, while it also stands firmly to defend the values of life. Like a poem, the Taipei Poetry Festival brings poets from diverse backgrounds together and fosters encounters that broaden our visions, both individually and collectively. It is a utopian dream within the heterotopia, where poetry becomes our pass.   

Curator
Hung Hung
September, 2025