Etemology of Love

愛 

the hand

bears the covered heart

and lays it at your feet

I love you

and my most precious organ

is yours

The influence of Chinese on Modernist poetry is a topic of literary research, not a topic I have great knowledge of, but the more I learn about Chinese characters, the more obvious the influence of Mandarin over Modern and contemporary English poetry becomes.

It’s been said before, and I’ll say it again, but Chinese is damn poetic. The written language is so much more abstract than English, or any other language I know of. Correct me if I’m wrong. I’m always amazed by how compact and condense Chinese characters are.

The emphasis on imagery, the encouragement to eschew unnecessary words, pronouns, conjunctions, to show not tell, these rules of poetry that were driven into me starting in middle school,  drew parallels to the characteristics of Mandarin I noticed when I first began to study it.