Reflecting on Poetry and Entrepreneurship
Written by Stuart Lyons and Sophie Harbour
On the face of it, poetry and entrepreneurship make for odd bedfellows, but traditional perceptions were challenged by the presentation on ‘Xu Zhimo - poetic innovator’ at the King’s E-Lab on 22 February, when the award-winning translator and King’s alumnus Stuart Lyons gave a slide presentation and poetry reading to an audience of 150 at the college’s Keynes Lecture Theatre. The message, underlined by the Provost Dr Gillian Tett OBE in her introduction, was that entrepreneurial thinking is not just the preserve of the hard disciplines of maths, science, economics and engineering.
There are many lessons to take from his story.
Innovation and creativity challenge conventional approaches. During his time in Cambridge, Xu Zhimo was introduced to and adopted by the Heretics Society, a Cambridge discussion group that challenged orthodox ways of thinking. He also found mentorship from scathing critics of conventional outlooks like Bertrand Russel. Xu reminds us that the critical and creative approach is not easy. It needs courage. We find this reflected in his early work ‘Night’:
To find true safety, you must seek turmoil
and the deep floor of revolution.
To find true happiness, you must taste pain;
To find reality, know emptiness;
To find true life, choose the most perilous path;
To find true heaven, be hell’s guardian.
Innovation is not just about inventing something new but actively challenging orthodoxy and opening yourself up to the turmoil that can accompany this.
Though we should also remember that it is not a dismissal or rejection of all that is ‘old’. Some of Xu’s most inspiring work stems from his commitment to influential greats like William Wordsworth. He saw himself, like Wordsworth, as a lonely wanderer among the daffodils, and he dedicated his time to the marrying of things not previously placed together: traditions blending to blossom something new. Xu paired the characters and cadences of Chinese to the metrical rhyming schemes of the English Romantics; he merged the techniques of assonance and alliteration with the duplication of characters and the subtle use of Chinese radicals; and he played on sounds and words to create new musicality, imagery and architecture. Seeing the opportunities to playfully incorporate all of these elements is characteristic of a particular mindset.
Another lesson we can take from Xu’s experience is the power of a diverse group of friends and mentors to stimulate new avenues of discovery and thinking. Among Xu’s associates we can count Roger Fry, the artist and art critic; Bertrand Russell, the future Nobel prize winning philosopher; Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson, the inspirational teacher, Xu’s Director of Studies and a contemporary of Roger Fry; Frank Ramsey, the brilliant mathematician; Richard Braithwaite, the moral scientist and Sebastian Sprott, the moral scientist, later professor of philosophy at Nottingham (though a lecturer in psychology too) and protégé of John Maynard Keynes. We see both the breadth and depth of knowledge with which Xu was encased and can appreciate the impact of these friendships.
Often, poetry, and the arts more generally, provide common ground upon which such diverse people can come together. In fact, many who reflect on work in negotiation and diplomacy suggest that art, music and poetry transcend boundaries in ways that other forms of communication do not. As Gillian Tett mentioned in her introductory comments, given the divisiveness we see so often across societies today, this moment is the perfect time to reflect on the life of Xu Zhimo and the art that bring cultures, and people, together.
Among Xu’s friends and mentors we find some of the greatest intellectual names of the 20th century, but the point of his work was not to be exclusive to the exalted halls and private rooms of Cambridge academics. Xu had two additional aims to his marrying of English and Chinese – he wanted to write in the language of ordinary people, and he wanted to describe personal emotions and experiences. The reach of Xu’s poetry demonstrates the success of his ambitions but it also speaks to a message of inclusion.
This is what art should do.
The stereotypes of ‘entrepreneurship’ – of profit seeking and financial risk taking – have created a barrier, divorcing the concept from its true meaning and isolating it from many people, especially in creative fields. In actual fact, innovation is fused to creativity and fed by “ordinary” experiences of love (one need only glance through Xu’s romantic endeavours to see this), friendship and humanity.
On a final note, Xu’s approach was not just characterised by innovative vision and creativity, his outlook was also one of social activism. When he returned to China in the autumn of 1922, with the help of the educational reformist Hú Shì, he formed the Crescent Moon Society. It was a discussion group of intellectuals and activists, whose objectives were to promote the ideals of the May Fourth Movement of 1919, a political movement which prompted intellectual renewal, the extension of literacy, and freedom of thought. Later, in 1928, when Xu visited the Bengali poet and Nobel prize-winner Rabindranath Tagore, he was confronted by the poverty of India. His worldview had changed and he makes a vow: ‘the warm protection of my breast, /My lifeblood and the light of my spirit’ to ‘all the world’s unknown victims’.
These lessons from Xu Zhimo’s story – in innovation, creativity, love and humanity – are an important part of his legacy and compliments to his beautiful poetry.
Saying Goodbye - The Poems of Xu Zhimo and Xu Zhimo in Cambridge - Life and Poetry are available at the Shop at King’s at 13 King’s Parade for a special student discount price of £9.95.
Stuart Lyons
Stuart was a Major Scholar in Classics at King’s College, Cambridge, and is a Fellow Benefactor of the College. He is the author of both ‘Saying Goodbye - The Poems of Xu Zhimo’ and its companion volume ‘Xu Zhimo in Cambridge - Life and Poetry’. Stuart won the 2020 Stephen Spender Prize for his verse translation of Xu Zhimo’s ‘Wild West Cambridge at Dusk’. Stuart also writes books, articles, and reviews on classical subjects. His verse translations of the ‘Odes of Horace’ were a Financial Times book choice in 1996. Stuart was appointed CBE (Commander of the British Empire) in 1993 for services to industry. He established the King’s College Entrepreneurship Competition in 2014 and is an active supporter of the King’s E-Lab.
Sophie Harbour
Sophie is a PhD student at POLIS, University of Cambridge and a member of Murray Edwards College. She researches care and governance and completed her Masters in Political Theory at the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa. Sophie is the Editor of the E-Lab Blog Series, Mindsets, and works with the Centre for Social Innovation in the Cambridge Peacebuilding, Climate and Conflict Lab (CPCCL).