Mayor Chen of Kaohsiung City, Director Yeh of the Kaohsiung Bureau of Cultural Affairs, Chairman Cheng of the Literature Taiwan Foundation, Chairman Lee of the National Cultural and Arts Foundation and also the Chairman of this Festival's Preparation Committee, Director Lin of the National Museum of Taiwanese Literature, Chairman Tzeng of Taiwan PEN, Mr. Derek Walcott—1992 Nobel Literature Prize Laureate from St. Lucia, Poets from all over the world, Members of the Preparation Committee, Notables from the field of Arts and Culture, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen: Good Morning!
I would like to first extend my warmest welcome to all the poets and friends of poetry, especially those who come from seventeen different countries in six different continents, to participate in the 2005 World Poetry Festival in Kaohsiung and to share with us, the people of Taiwan, your accomplishments in the field of arts and literature.
Poetry is the mesmerizing voice of the soul, the coalescence of living wisdom and the human spirits, and the manifestation of a people's collective ethnic consciousness. It creates resonance in the realm of the human aesthetics; it is also the "language of elegance and beauty," shared by all humanity, that transcends ethnic and national boundaries.
Poets are the architects of human souls. Through gatherings like this, we join the "spiritual architects" from all around the world to converse, promote, and propagate the trueness, benevolence, and beauty of life—the language of poetry. This is also a responsibility that we, as citizens of the world, must shoulder together.
Taiwan is a country known for its multiculturalism. Thousands of years ago, our ancestors on this land began to understand that they should use folk songs to pass their life experiences and wisdom to their descendents; henceforth, we have our earliest form of poetry.
About four hundred years ago, we began to use written forms of different languages to record our life and our thinking; and various styles of poems and songs were created. More than eighty years ago, we began to accept the introduction of the Western literatures. In this way, we are able to pace along with contemporary literary developments around the world, using similar techniques and concepts to let out our inner voice in the form of beautiful poetry, which has united us with the world's poetics. These are poems shared among poetry enthusiasts around the globe and resonated throughout the world. Indeed, for the past four hundred years, we have, on this land, created an anthology of multicultural, multi-dialectical, and symphonic-like poetry, that is distinctive of the poetry of Taiwan.
Taiwan is blessed and richly endowed by nature, an island known as Formosa. Most places on the same equatorial latitude as Taiwan are part of the desert belts, but Taiwan is a beautiful island with splendid mountains and rivers and abundant natural resources. Due to its unique geographical characteristics—consist of the tropical, the subtropical, the temperate and the frigid zones—Taiwan is indeed "a land flowing of milk and honey," complemented by the multiculturalism embedded in its society. Taiwan's richly diverse characteristics have given poets inexhaustible sources of inspiration, which become manifested in the uniquely diverse, inclusive, and broad-minded poetry written and created on this land.
Here, in front of our fellow poets from different parts of the world, we would like to humbly welcome you to share with us your poetic perspectives, thoughts and artistic experiences—valuable insights that poetry from Taiwan can draw lessons from. In the mean time, we would also like to exhibit the achievements of our Taiwanese poetry and ask for your opinions and input.
Lastly, I would like to share with you a poem written by Poet Ji-Shien in 1945; it is called "My Voice and My Existence":
I must let out my voice,
For that it is the only evidence of my existence.
…
Otherwise, what will be negated must be me,
A squall from any direction will obliterate my existence,
So effortlessly, just like putting out the flicker of a match.
…
My voice is the evidence of my existence,
Incessantly I must, let out the voice in me.
It is my sincerely hope that oppressed people from all over the world, as well as those who have been subjugated to unfairness and injustice, would shout out their voices, loudly and with courage and determination; for that we know silence and inaction will invariably fuel the force of the oppressor.
In the March 26 Parade that will be held tomorrow, I call upon all of you to rise to the occasion and let the world hear our voice of democracy and peace. Like what the Writer Yang Kuei had once said: let all the elderly and the young support one another in each other's arms as we walk on towards the garden of a hundred flowers in full blossom.
My very best wishes for the success of this Festival. May peace be with you all!