A POEM OF CHANGGAN

INTRODUCTION

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In A Nutshell
Long distance relationships are tough. When our sweetheart's far away from us, we can't hold their hand, we can't
cuddle with them, and we can't even be couch potatoes together and binge our favorite Netflix titles. We miss them
so much, we might feel like crying sometimes. Thank goodnessfor the internet and for smartphones, right? At least
nowadays we can reach out and (virtually) touch someone when we really miss them.
Now, imagine being in a long distance relationship a thousand years ago, when there weren't any phones, there
wasn't an internet, and we didn't even have cars and planes to zip us around. Li Po's "A Poem of Changgan" gives
us an insight into exactly what it felt like to be in a long distance relationship before technology made it easy for us to
stay in touch. It's a poem that's spoken by a young wife who's waiting for her husband to return from a long journey.
Even though "A Poem of Changgan" describes a time and a place that may be very alien to us (it's set in China, and
was written over a thousand years ago, in the middle of the eighth century), the feelings that the poem describes are
very familiar. The young wife's sadness, her isolation, her feelings of missing her hubby are all things that many of us
have experienced when we're separated from those we love. Sure, nowadays we have technology to help us stay in
touch, but there's no getting around the "distance" part of a long distance relationship.

WHY SHOULD I CARE?

Ah, first lovewe know the feeling: when that special someone in our chemistry class walks into the room, and our
heart starts pumping. Our hands get all sweaty. We get all fidgety and nervous. It's like we're possessed. There's
nothing like that experience of falling in love for the first time. Chances are, even if we go on to have a hundred
girlfriends or boyfriends, we'll never forget that first special someone we fell in love with.
Li Po's "A Poem of Changgan" is so great not only because it describes exactly what it feels like to have that
experience of first love. Sure, the poem is also about what it feels like to be in a long distance relationship. And yes,
maybe we've gone through so many broken relationships ourselves that we've become all cynical about love. But still,
"A Poem of Changgan" takes us back to that experience of our first romancethe thrills, the aches, the obsession.
And don't we all want to remember what that was like?

A POEM OF CHANGGAN: TEXT

OF THE POEM

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My hair had hardly covered my forehead.

I was picking flowers, playing by my door,
When you, my lover, on a bamboo horse,
Came trotting in circles and throwing green plums.
We lived near together on a lane in Ch'ang-kan,
Both of us young and happy-hearted.
...At fourteen I became your wife,
So bashful that I dared not smile,
And I lowered my head toward a dark corner
And would not turn to your thousand calls;
But at fifteen I straightened my brows and laughed,
Learning that no dust could ever seal our love,
That even unto death I would await you by my post
And would never lose heart in the tower of silent watching.
...Then when I was sixteen, you left on a long journey
Through the Gorges of Ch'u-t'ang, of rock and whirling water.
And then came the Fifth-month, more than I could bear,
And I tried to hear the monkeys in your lofty far-off sky.
Your footprints by our door, where I had watched you go,
Were hidden, every one of them, under green moss,
Hidden under moss too deep to sweep away.
And the first autumn wind added fallen leaves.
And now, in the Eighth-month, yellowing butterflies
Hover, two by two, in our west-garden grasses
And, because of all this, my heart is breaking
And I fear for my bright cheeks, lest they fade.
...Oh, at last, when you return through the three Pa districts,
Send me a message home ahead!
And I will come and meet you and will never mind the distance,
All the way to Chang-feng Sha.

A POEM OF CHANGGAN
SUMMARY

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The poem starts off with the speaker as a teeny-tot, hangin' outside her house and playing with flowers. Then, this
little boy comes by on his toy horse, throwing green plums around (don't ask us why). And here we have the
beginning of a beautiful love affair. This is the moment that the speaker meets her future-husband. How could she not
be impressed by his toy bamboo horse? In this first stanza, as in the rest of the poem, the speaker addresses her
sweetheart directly, referring to him as "you" as she describes the history of their relationship.
The second stanza skips forward into the speaker's teenage years. She may only be a teenager, but at fourteen she
marries her sweetheart. (People got married way young back in those days. Can we imagine marrying our high
school boyfriend, like, in high school? Weird, huh?) The speaker tells us that she's super-shy with her hubby at first;
she can't even smile around him. But thankfully, with time, she grows into the relationship and gets comfortable
enough to laugh around him. What's more, she realizes that she's head-over-heels in love. She'll wait forever for her
hubby if she has to.
The newlyweds don't have much time to enjoy each other's company. Two years after she's married, our speaker has
to watch her hubby depart on a long journey. Months go by, and her hubby still hasn't come back. She watches for
him and waits and waits, the seasons change, and there's still no sign of him. Where are you, hubby?
In the last stanza, the speaker tells her hubby to send her a message when he's on his way home. She tells him she'll
come and meet him on his way back. But of course, she has no idea when, or even whether, he'll ever be back
sniff.

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STANZA 1 SUMMARY

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Get out the microscope, because were going through this

poem line-by-line.
Line 1
My hair had hardly covered my forehead.

The speaker begins the poem by talking about her hair. (We're betting that she's a she here, at this point,
since we have no evidence otherwise. Check out our "Speaker" section for more.)
So what does she mean when she says her hair had hardly covered her forehead? Well, it's probably a
reference to the fact that the speaker of the poem is very young. She's so young, her bangs haven't even
covered her forehead properly.
We also notice that the poem starts with the word "My." This is important because it puts emphasis on the
speaker of the poem: she's at the center of this poem.
We'll also notice some alliteration in these first lines, with repetition of the letter H. Of course, given that this
poem was originally written in Chinese, we don't know if that alliteration exists in the original language. But in
the English translation, the repetition of the H sound here gives some rhythm to this first line. (Check out
"Sound Check" for more on this poem's sounds.)

Lines 2-4
I was picking flowers, playing by my door,
When you, my lover, on a bamboo horse,
Came trotting in circles and throwing green plums.

What a cute scene the speaker paints for us here. She's a little kid playing by the door and her "lover," who
is himself only a kid at this time, comes by. We'll notice that the speaker addresses her lover directly in these
lines, saying "you." So this poem is addressed to the speaker's sweetheart.
In these lines the speaker also makes comedy out of romantic conventions. Instead of giving us a lover on a
real horse (kind of a like a knight in shining armor), we get a little boy on a bamboo horse, a toy horse.
And what is this heroic lover doing on his bamboo horse? He's throwing green plums around. (Who knows
why? It's fun to throw around green plums when we're a little kid, we guess.)
So these lines give us the beginning of the romance between the speaker and her lover. This is a romance
that goes way back, to childhood.

Lines 5-6
We lived near together on a lane in Ch'ang-kan,
Both of us young and happy-hearted.

Here the speaker lets us know that she and her lover grew up in the same 'hood: in Ch'ang-kan. This is an
ancient city in China, which is referred to in the title of the poem as "Changgan."
By saying that they were both "young and happy-hearted," the speaker again puts emphasis on the idea of
age: they're young. Not only that, they're happygood times, gang.
Before we leave this first stanza behind, take another look. Notice any patterns of rhyme or rhythm? Yeah,
us neither.
We're dealing with some free verse here. Check out "Form and Meter" for all the details.

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STANZA 2 SUMMARY

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Get out the microscope, because were going through this

poem line-by-line.
Lines 7-10
At fourteen I became your wife,
So bashful that I dared not smile,
And I lowered my head toward a dark corner
And would not turn to your thousand calls;

Wow, people married young back in the day, didn't they? The speaker's only fourteen when she marries her
lover (who is probably her age, or not much older).
These lines paint a picture of the early days of their relationship. The speaker's so shy with her hubby that
she can't even smile.
She doesn't even answer her husband's calls (and no, we're not talking about telephone calls hereshe
doesn't answer when her husband actually calls to her). Props to him for not giving up, though. A thousand
calls? That seems a little extreme, even for folks in love. Likely, this is an example of hyperbole on the part
of our speaker.
This speaker just hides her head in a "dark corner" instead of answering her husband. These lines give us a
sense of just how young and shy the speaker is at this point.

Lines 11-12
But at fifteen I straightened my brows and laughed,
Learning that no dust could ever seal our love,

Finally, after a year of being married to her lover, our speaker gets over her shyness (about time!).
The image of "straightening" her brows suggests that the speaker has stopped being so shy and worried. If
we straighten our brows, that implies that we're not frowning anymore.
More good news: the speaker's laughing. That's some progress from being so shy that she has to hide her
face in a dark corner.
The line "Learning that no dust could ever seal our love" isambiguous. Dust evokes burial and death. So the
speaker couldmean that death can't "seal," or close off, their love. That is, death can't destroy their love.

What we see in these lines is that the speaker's really grown into her relationship with her hubby. This is one
in-love bride.

Lines 13-14
That even unto death I would await you by my post
And would never lose heart in the tower of silent watching.

The speaker's so in love with her hubby that, now she's gotten over her shyness, she would be willing to
wait "unto death" by her "post" for him. What's a post? That's a place where someone stands to keep watch
for someone else.
She tells us that she would never lose patience, or "heart," in the "tower of silent watching." The image of
the "tower of silent watching" gives us a view of the speaker looking out of a tower (kind of like the way that
a watchman looks out of a lighthouse), in silence, waiting for her hubby. It seems like this guy goes on trips
every once in a while, though the speaker doesn't tell us why. Maybe he's some sort of ancient
businessman?
Let's hop to the next stanza to learn more

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STANZA 3 SUMMARY

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Get out the microscope, because were going through this

poem line-by-line.
Line 15-16
Then when I was sixteen, you left on a long journey
Through the Gorges of Ch'u-t'ang, of rock and whirling water.

Two years after she's married, the speaker's hubby goes off on a "long" journey. Oh manand this happens
just as this shy girl was beginning to enjoy her marriage.
The speaker's description of her husband's journey gives us a sense of how dangerous it is. He's going to
be making his way through gorges "of rock and whirling water." The gorges of "Ch'u-t'ang" are near the
Yangtze river in China.
It sure sounds like a hazardous journey. Come back safe, hubby!

The speaker continues to address her hubby directly in these lines, as "you." So the poem kind of feels like
a letter.
The speaker's hubby isn't there, but the speaker speaks to him as though he is right there.

Lines 17-18
And then came the Fifth-month, more than I could bear,
And I tried to hear the monkeys in your lofty far-off sky.

All those months are whizzing by (five, to be precise) and the speaker's hubby is still away. She's really
missing him now.
What does the speaker mean when she says that she "tried to hear the monkeys" in his "lofty far-off sky"?
Well, she's trying to connect with her husband, despite the long-distance, by imagining the landscape that
he's moving through.
Maybe wherever he is there are monkeys, and he can hear them, and so she tries to hear them, too.
Seriously, long-distance relationships were really hard back in the day. In the absence of Skype, all the
speaker can do is try to listen to the imagined monkeys that are hanging out somewhere near where she
guesses her husband is now.

Line 19-21
Your footprints by our door, where I had watched you go,
Were hidden, every one of them, under green moss,
Hidden under moss too deep to sweep away.

The image of the footprints hidden under moss gives us a sense of how much time has passed. The moss is
"too deep to sweep away." It's been so long since the husband's departure, that that moss has covered the
hubby's footsteps.
These lines also give us a sense of how closely the speaker watches time pass. She's going out there
checking for her husband's footsteps, and seeing whether they're still there. She's kind of obsessed, in other
words. Time is passing and she's waiting, and her hubby's still not back.
Now that we've gone through a lot of the poem, notice that the language is very simple and straightforward.
It sounds more like prose than poetry. There are no rhymes, and the lines are of varying lengths. This gives
the poem a very conversational tone, as if the speaker is just speaking her thoughts. (For more on this, hit
up "Form and Meter.")

Lines 22-24
And the first autumn wind added fallen leaves.
And now, in the Eighth-month, yellowing butterflies
Hover, two by two, in our west-garden grasses.

These lines also emphasize the sense of time passing. The seasons are passing. The autumn's come, and
the leaves are falling off the trees. The months are rollin' on by. Now "the Eighth-month" has arrived. By
giving us a sense of the changes taking place in nature, the speaker gets us to understand how much time
has passed.
The image of the butterflies hovering "two by two" also evoke the speaker's isolation. The butterflies all have
hubbies, but the speaker doesn't. Unlike the butterflies, she's alonebummer.

Lines 25-26
And, because of all this, my heart is breaking
And I fear for my bright cheeks, lest they fade.

This is the first time that the speaker tells us explicitly how her sweetheart's absence is affecting her. Her
"heart is breaking." This is some serious sadness. This girl's not very good at dealing with long-distance
relationships, is she?
When the speaker tells us that she fears that her "bright cheeks" may "fade," she's telling us two things.
First, she's telling us that she's so miserable that she's afraid that she's going to lose her good looks
worrying over her hubby.
When we're unhappy, we don't look very goodour cheeks get pale, we look tired. This is what the speaker
fears.
Second, by talking about her bright cheeks fading, the speaker also evokes the passage of time. She's
afraid that her husband will be gone for so long that she's going to lose her youth waiting for him.
In both cases, her cheeks represent the health of her whole personbody and mind. In the poetry biz, we
call that technique synecdoche.

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STANZA 4 SUMMARY

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Get out the microscope, because were going through this

poem line-by-line.
Lines 27-28
Oh, at last, when you return through the three Pa districts,
Send me a message home ahead!

The speaker addresses her husband directly in these lines, as she does in the rest of the poem, asking him
to send her a message telling her that he's arriving. Her direct address to him in the form of a demand
("Send me a message") underscores her desperation to see him.
Here the speakers projects into the future, imagining her husband's return through "the three Pa districts."
The Pa districts are in the area of the ancient city of Changgan.

These lines reflect the speaker's hope. Even though it's been months and months since he's left, the
speaker still believes that he'll come back one day. For her sake, we hope so.

Lines 29-30
And I will come and meet you and will never mind the distance,
All the way to Chang-feng Sha.

The speaker tells her husband that she'll come and meet him at "Chang-feng Sha" when he sends her a
message of his arrival. Chang-feng Sha is an area that's a few hundred miles away from Changgan. So the
speaker herself is willing to journey far in order to welcome her hubby home. What a lovely (and lonely) wife
she is.
Even though these final lines evoke the speaker's hope for seeing her husband again, there's something sad
about it.
That's because her husband hasn't actually come back yet. These final lines reflect the speaker's wishful
thinking.
So, while these lines reflect the speaker's hope for seeing her sweetheart again, they call attention to the
fact that he hasn't actually returned.
The final lines of the poem, in other words, leave us hangin'. Will this speaker see her husband again or not?
We just don't know. This poem is one big cliffhanger.

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A POEM OF CHANGGAN
SYMBOLISM, IMAGERY,
ALLEGORY

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Physical Development
"A Poem of Changgan" is narrated by a girl who becomes a wife. It's a very personal poem, about how sad the
speaker feel about being separated from her husband, who's gone away on a long journey. O...

Waiting
It's not fun to be stuck waiting for things, is it? The speaker of this poem waits and waits and waits for her husband
to come back from his long trip. Waiting is a big theme in the poem. The po...

Journey
Journeys can be fun. (And we don't mean these guys, though we can get down to "Don't Stop Believin'" any time.)
They can be full of adventure. We get to see new, beautiful places when we travel. Bu...

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PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT

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Symbol Analysis
"A Poem of Changgan" is narrated by a girl who becomes a wife. It's a very personal poem, about how sad the
speaker feel about being separated from her husband, who's gone away on a long journey. One way that the speaker
gives us an insight into her internal state is through descriptions of her physical development, how her face and body
change over the course of time. She starts off as teeny-weeny girl and then grows up, and each stage of her
development is reflected in her physical appearance.

Line 1: By telling us that her "hair had hardly covered [her] forehead" in the first line, the speaker clues us
into the fact that she's still just a tiny little girl when she first meets her future husband. When we're very
little, our hair takes a while to grow out. So this is a way that the speaker tells us that she's a child.
Line 8: At fourteen, when the speaker marries her sweetheart, she's "[s]o bashful that I dared not smile." All
teenagers are awkward at that age, aren't they? And we'd be especially awkward if we had to get married at
fourteen, that's for sure. That's pretty young, but hey, that's how people did things back in the day. Again, by
giving us a description of her physical appearance and behavior here, the speaker gives us an insight into
her emotional development, too.
Line 11: At fifteen the speaker is a very different person, "straightening" her brows and laughing. No, that
doesn't mean she tweezes her eyebrows. It means that she isn't frowning all the time because she's so shy.

She's laughing now. The physical description of the speaker here shows us how she has developed and
matured, embracing her relationship with her husband.
Line 26: By saying that she "fears for [her] bright cheeks, lest they fade," the speaker gives us an indication
of her sadness. Her sweetheart's been gone for months, and it's taking a toll on her. Again, through giving
us a description of the physical changes she's undergoing, the speaker gives us an insight into her
emotional state.

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WAITING

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Symbol Analysis
It's not fun to be stuck waiting for things, is it? The speaker of this poem waits and waits and waits for her husband
to come back from his long trip. Waiting is a big theme in the poem. The poem suggests the pain that comes along
with being separated from those we love, without knowing when they will return, or even what's happened to them.
Thank goodnesswe live in an age of emails and texts. What would we do without them?

Lines 13-14: After she stops being all shy and coy with her hubby, the speaker realizes that she's really in
love with him. How in love? So in love that "even unto death [she] would await [him] by [her] post/ And would
never lose heart in the tower of silent watching." That is, no matter where he goes or how far he goes, she'd
always wait for him. Her emphasis on waiting "unto death" here gives us a sense of just how in love she is
with her hubby.
Line 17: Sure, the speaker says she'll wait forever for her hubby. But only five months into his trip, she's
already finding it "more than [she] could bear." Waiting's easier written about than done, isn't it? Here we
begin to see the difficulties of waiting. It's difficult being separated from a loved one, especially in the preinternet and text-messaging age.
Line 21: The speaker gives us a sense of how long her wait is by describing the changing seasons here.
Autumn's come. This suggests that not only months, but whole seasons are passing as the speaker waits for
her love.
Lines 22-23: Eight months later, the speaker is still waiting for hubby to come back from his trip. We get a
sense of the speaker's long wait, not only through her reference to the number of the months that have
passed (eight), but also through her description of changing nature. "[Y]ellowing butterflies" are beginning to
float around. Presumably, they weren't flying around a few months earlier.

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JOURNEY

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Symbol Analysis
Journeys can be fun. (And we don't mean these guys, though we can get down to "Don't Stop Believin'" any time.)
They can be full of adventure. We get to see new, beautiful places when we travel. But, in "A Poem of Changgan,"
journeys are a source of pain and heartbreak. That's because the journey in this poem separates the speaker from
her husband. Even though the husband's journey is the catalyst for the speaker's sadness, it also reveals how much
this speaker loves her sweetheart. The depth of her feelings for her husband, in other words, is revealed because of
the journey that separates her from him.

Line 15: The speaker's hubby goes away on a long journey. This journey is the source of all the speaker's
misery, because it separates her from him. The journey, in other words, is at the center of the conflict and
sadness that the speaker experiences in this poem.
Line 16: The speaker tells us that her husband's journey takes him "[t]hrough the Gorges of Ch'u-t'ang, of
rock and whirling water." This description is important because it suggests that the husband's journey is
dangerous. What if he falls down one of those gorges or drowns in that whirling water? This description
raises the question of whether the husband will return safely. Will he come back from this dangerous
journey?
Line 27: By referring to her hubby's return here, the speaker suggests that she's still full of hope, despite her
husband's long absence. But is she deluded? After all, her hubby's had to go through some seriously
dangerous terrain, and it's a question whether he will ever come back, especially since it's been so long
since he left.

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ANALYSIS: FORM AND METER

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Lyric, Free Verse

Of course, this poem was originally written in Chinese, so we're dealing with a translation here. But hey, given that we
can't speak Chinese (we wish we could), we'll talk about the translation that's available to us.
First of all, we can describe this poem as a lyric work, because it's spoken by a first-person speaker, and the poem
gives us an insight in the speaker's thoughts and feelings. After all, the poem is all about how the speaker's so in love
with her hubby, and how much she misses him.
Form-wise, the poem is written in free verse, because, as we can see, there's no regular meter or regular rhyme
scheme.
Let's take a few lines from the first stanza as an example:
When you, my lover, on a bamboo horse,
Came trotting in circles and throwing green plums.
We lived near together on a lane in Ch'ang-kan,
Both of us young and happy-hearted. (3-6)
As we can see, the lengths of these lines vary. There are ten syllables in line 3, eleven syllables in line 4, twelve
syllables in the line 5, and nine syllables in line 6. There's also no regular stress in these lines. Because there is no
regular meter or stress, we can safely say that the poem's written in free verse.
Again, it's important to keep in mind that this is the English translation of an ancient Chinese text, but we're still cool
with this free verse form. Why? Well, think about it: this is a lonely wife essentially speaking to her missing husband.
Based on their relationship, it seems totally the right choice to go free verse here, which lends the whole affair an
informal, conversationaltone. After all, when's the last time you spoke in sonnet form to your boyfriend or girlfriend?

ANALYSIS: SPEAKER

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We learn a whole lot about the speaker of this poem. This is partly because she starts off telling us about herself as a
teeny-weeny little kid, and we watch her as she grows up and gets married. So the poem gives us an insight into her
emotional development over the course of her childhood and teenage years.
She starts off as a really shy bride, but then grows to really love her husband. In fact, she loves him so much that she
doesn't do a very good job handling the long-distance relationship, once he goes away. She's so sad to be without
her sweetheart. Can we blame her?
The point is, we get a sense both of the speaker's love for her hubby and her loneliness and sadness as a result of
her separation from him. And we get this insight into her emotions because she speaks in the first person, confessing
her feelings to her hubby (and, indirectly, to us).

ANALYSIS: SETTING

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Where It All Goes Down

There are two main settings in this poem: the setting of the house and the neighborhood that the speaker inhabits,
waiting for her husband, and then there's the landscape that the speaker's husband journeys through.
The setting of "Changgan"the ancient Chinese city where the speaker first meets her husband as a little kid, and
where she still livesis familiar and comfortable. It's home. But the setting that the speaker's husband moves through
is dangerous. The speaker says that his "long journey" takes him "[t]hrough the Gorges of Ch'u-t'ang, of rock and
whirling water." Just by the description of these gorges (near the Yangtze River in China), we get a sense of danger.
He'll have to watch his step around those rocks and whirling water.
In the final stanza, the speaker also refers to meeting her husband at "Chang-feng Sha." This is an area that's a few
hundred miles away from Changgan. The poem evokes a lot of geography for us. We get names of towns and gorges
and cities. This emphasis on geography highlights the speaker's plight. She's sad because she is separated from her
hubby by geography.
So, our setting delivers both a sense of comfort and familiarity (the speaker's home turf that she shares with her
hubby) and a sense of distance and isolation (dude's on another part of the map, altogether).

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ANALYSIS: SOUND CHECK

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Thanks to its free verse form (check out "Form and Meter" for more), this poem sounds very conversationaland we
mean very. There's no regularmeter, no rhyme, and, to top it all off, the speaker's vocabulary is also pretty simple. So
this poem sounds very much as if we're eavesdropping on the speaker talking to her husband, whom she addresses

even though he's not there. In other words, it doesn't sound like a poem in the conventional sense we're used to.
Let's take a few lines from the third stanza as an example:
Your footprints by our door, where I had watched you go,
Were hidden, every one of them, under green moss,
Hidden under moss too deep to sweep away (19-21)
If we read these lines out loud, we'll notice that it's as if we're reading prose, not poetry. There are no clear stress
patterns on the syllables, and of course no rhyme scheme.
That said, there are still some rhythms that we can find here. For instance, words like "deep" and "sweep" echo each
other with their long E sounds. That's called assonance. And back in the very first line, as we pointed out in the
"Detailed Summary," we had three H words in a row: "hair had hardly." That technique is called alliteration. So, even
though the tone of this poem sounds very conversational, we still get occasional reminders that languageeven in
translationis an important part of understanding this speaker's experience. Like the babbling of that that whirling
water, sound echoes pop up throughoutif we listen hard enough.

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ANALYSIS: WHAT'S UP WITH

THE TITLE?

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The most important thing about the title of this poem, "A Poem of Changgan," is "Changgan." What is it? It's an
ancient capital city in north central China, so this title clues us into the fact that we're in China.
You can check out "Setting" for more on the geography at work here. The word "Changgan" gives us more than the
location, though, it also clues us into the time period. See, in modern day China, the city is referred to as "Xi-an," not
as Changgan. Changgan is the old name. So the name also tells us that this poem is set way back in the day, as in,
ancient times. In fact, this poem is so ancient, we don't know exactly when it was written, but the poet who wrote it, Li
Po, lived between 701 and 762 AD. Yeah, that's over athousand years ago.
Essentially, then, our title is the poetic equivalent of "A long time ago, in a country far, far away"

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ANALYSIS: CALLING CARD

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Conversational
Li Po may have been writing poetry over a thousand years ago, but this dude sure knows how to communicate in a
direct way. He's known for a style of poetry that is clear, simple, and conversational in tone. We can see his simplicity
and conversational style in action in poems such as "Down Zhongnan Mountain," and "Drinking Alone with the
Moon".

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ANALYSIS: TOUGH-O-METER

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(2) Sea Level

This is a pretty straightforward poem about a wife missing her husband. Simple, right? Yes, it is, but the reason we
didn't give it an even easier rating is because there are a couple of things that might throw us off on a first reading.
First of all, there are the names of strange locations, like Changgan. (Where the heck's that? Go back to the "What's
Up With the Title?" section to find out). And then, given that this is an ancient poem, there are references to cultural
practices or habits that can be confusing. Who knew people got married at fourteen back in ancient China?

ANALYSIS: TRIVIA

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Brain Snacks: Tasty Tidbits of Knowledge

Li Po is in fact known by several names, including Li Pai, Li Bo, and Qinglian Jushi.
(Source.)
Li Po took his own journey in life. He left his home in 725 to wander the Yangtze River Valley and write poems.
(Sounds like fun to us.)
(Source.)
The famous modernist poet, Ezra Pound, translated Japanese versions of Li Po's poems.

ANALYSIS: STEAMINESS
RATING

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Exactly how steamy is this poem?

G
Yes, this is a poem about a marriage, but nothere's no hanky-panky here. How could there be when the speaker of
this poem, the bride, is so shy?

ANALYSIS: ALLUSIONS

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When poets refer to other great works, people, and

events, its usually not accidental. Put on your supersleuth hat and figure out why.
Geographical References:

Changgan (or Ch'ang-kan) (title, l. 5): an ancient city in north-central China, which was the capital of the
Tang Dynasty

Gorges of Chu-t'ang (l. 16): gorges along the Yangtze river in China
Chang-feng Sha (l. 30): an area a few hundred miles from Changgan

A POEM OF CHANGGAN THEME

OF LOVE

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Ah, loveit makes us happy, it makes us sad, it makes us crazy. That last part's especially true when we're stuck in
a long-distance relationship with no end in sight, just the way that the speaker of "A Poem of Changgan" is. This is, in
fact, a love poem. It's about how we can fall head over heels for someone, and the pain that comes when we're
separated from themespecially when we can't Skype with them or call them or email them, and especially when we
have no idea when they're coming back.

Questions About Love

1.
2.
3.

In what ways does the speaker express her love for her husband in this poem?
What's the relationship between waiting and love in "A Poem of Changgan"?
Can we guess anything about the way the speaker's husband feels about her in this poem? If so, what can
we deduce about his feelings for her? What parts of the poem give you your ideas?

Chew on This
Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devils advocate.
In this poem, love is a source of pain.
Nope, sorryin this poem, love is actually a source of joy.

A POEM OF CHANGGAN THEME

OF GENDER

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"A Song of Changgan" is written by a male poet, but it's spoken by a female speaker. This raises questions about
gender as a theme in the poem. How does the poem present gender roles and relationships? Why is the poem
narrated by a female speaker? Does this poem affirm or undermine traditional gender roles? These are all interesting
questions, of course (if we do say so ourselves). Depending on how we read the poem, we can either see it as a
presenting us with a pretty kick-bum assertion of a female perspective, or instead as a poem that simply reinforces
traditional gender roles.

Questions About Gender

1.
2.
3.

In what ways does this poem reflect traditional gender roles, when it comes to the speaker's relationship to
her husband?
In what ways can this be read as a "feminist" poem? How does it reflect a feminist perspective?
What does this poem suggest about women's power? Is the speaker of this poem in control of her life, or is
she not? What parts of the poem give you your ideas?

Chew on This
Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devils advocate.
"A Poem of Changgan" affirms traditional gender roles and hierarchies.
On the contrary, our good Shmooper, "A Poem of Changgan" challenges traditional gender roles and hierarchies.

A POEM OF CHANGGAN THEME

OF DREAMS, HOPES AND
PLANS

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The speaker of "A Poem of Changgan" sure doesn't have any grand plans. All she wants is for her sweetheart to
come back from his long journey. The problem is, she doesn't really have any control over whether her hopes and
plans will actually come true. That's because she has no idea where her sweetheart is exactly, or even when he's
coming back. But that doesn't keep her from dreaming about it. After all, many of us dream and hope about what we
want, not necessarily what we can actually ever have.

Questions About Dreams, Hopes and Plans

1.
2.
3.

Does the speaker have any hopes or dreams beyond her husband's return? Why is the husband's return so
important to this speaker?
This poem ends without resolving whether the speaker's hopes and dreams will come true. Why do you
think there is lack of resolution at the end?
Are this speaker's hopes and dreams so limited because she is a woman? Why doesn't she have hopes and
dreams that don't involve her husband?

Chew on This
Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devils advocate.
The speaker of this poem has no control over her hopes and dreams, since they're all tied to her husband's return.
Actually, the speaker of this poem has control over her hopes and dreams. For one, she can choose not to tie her
hopes and dreams to her husband.

A POEM OF CHANGGAN THEME

OF TIME

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Tic toc tic toc On a fundamental level, "A Poem of Changgan" is a poem about
time. After all, it's a poem that covers a big chunk of the speaker's life, from her days as
a child when she first meets her sweetheart, to her marriage and her months of waiting
for him to come back. So the passage of time is an important theme in the poem, and
it's signaled in a number of ways.

Questions About Time

1. How does the speaker use nature to signal the passage of time in this poem?
2. How do we see the speaker develop as a person from her childhood and into her
teenage years and adulthood in the poem?
3. Is this speaker afraid of time? How can you tell?

Chew on This

Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devils advocate.

Time is the speaker's enemy in "A Poem of Changgan."
Pleasetime is a source of hope for the speaker in "A Poem of Changgan."

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A POEM OF CHANGGAN THEME

OF ISOLATION

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The speaker of "A Poem of Changgan" is one lonely gal. She falls in love with a boy, gets married, and soon after
she's hitched her hubby's off on a long journey from which she's not sure he's going to return. The poem's emphasis
on the speaker's isolation points to the pain that we experience when we are separated from those we love. This
poem may have been written over a thousand years ago, but the feelings of isolation and loneliness that it evokes are
familiar even in the time and age that we live in.

Questions About Isolation

1.
2.
3.

In what ways do the speaker's feelings during her childhood contrast with her feelings during her adulthood?
Is she happier or sadder as she grows older?
How does the speaker express her feelings of isolation in this poem?
What is the relationship between isolation and love in this poem?

Chew on This
Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devils advocate.
This speaker is completely isolated after her husband departs on his long journey.
No, nothis speaker is not isolated. Even though her husband has left on a long journey, she's still connected to him.

A POEM OF CHANGGAN LOVE

QUOTES
See more famous quotes from poetry

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How we cite our quotes: (Line)

Quote #1

When you, my lover, on a bamboo horse,

Came trotting in circles and throwing green plums (3-4)
These lovers go way, way back. They were practically in diapers when they first met. Well, at least the speaker's
lover was still riding a toy bamboo horse, which suggests that he was pretty little. The point is, the speaker's
evocation of meeting her sweetheart in childhood gives us a sense of how deep their relationshipand their loveis.
It has its roots way back in their childhood.
Love
Quote #2

At fourteen I became your wife,

So bashful that I dared not smile (7-8)
The lovers get married, but the speaker's so shy she can't even smile. We know that feeling. Don't we all get tied up
in knots when we're around our sweetheart? The marriage between the speaker and her lover represents the
fulfillment of their love for one another.
Love

But at fifteen I straightened my brows and laughed,

Learning that no dust could ever seal our love, (11-12)
Here we see the speaker growing more comfortable in her relationship with her hubby. She's finally laughing (thank
goodness!). Her statement that "no dust could ever seal our love" is ambiguous. Dust evokes many thingsit evokes
burial (since we're buried with dust, or dirt) and it also evokes travel, a "dusty" road. So here the speaker could be
suggesting that not even death or separation could destroy their love for one another.
Love

A POEM OF CHANGGAN
GENDER QUOTES
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How we cite our quotes: (Line)

Quote #1

I was picking flowers, playing by my door,

When you, my lover, on a bamboo horse,
Came trotting in circles and throwing green plums (2-4)
We can see some pretty conventional gender role play in this scene from the speaker's childhood. The girl (the
speaker) is picking flowers, and the boy (the lover) is trotting along on a toy horse. This is kind of the equivalent of
girls nowadays playing with Barbies and boys playing with cars and guns. In other words, even as children, we can
see that gender roles are differentiated through play.
Gender
Quote #2

And I lowered my head toward a dark corner

And would not turn to your thousand calls (9-10)
Again, here, we see the speaker depicting her relationship to her hubby in terms of conventional gender roles. It's her
hubby who calls a "thousand" times to his shy wife. In other words, he is the "active" man who initiates things, while
she cowers shyly in a corner.
Gender
Quote #3

But at fifteen I straightened my brows and laughed (11)

This is the first time in the poem where we get a sense of the female speaker growing in confidence. Now she's
laughing openly with her sweetheart; she isn't frowning anymore. She seems to be becoming an equal to her
husband, because she clearly feels comfortable expressing herself.
Gender

How we cite our quotes: (Line)

Quote #4

That even unto death I would await you by my post

And would never lose heart in the tower of silent watching (13-14)
In these lines, we get a stronger sense of the speaker's love for her hubby. She's willing to wait for him even "unto
death," so she'sreally into this dude. By saying that she would never lose heart while "watching" for him, she again
emphasizes how her love for him will never wane.
Love
Quote #5

And, because of all this, my heart is breaking (25)

Oh nothe speaker's heart is breaking. Why? Because she misses her sweetheart so much. The image of the
breaking heart here really gives us a sense of the toll that the husband's absence takes on the speaker. The more we
love someone, the more our heart breaks when we're separated from them.
Love

How we cite our quotes: (Line)

Quote #4

Then when I was sixteen, you left on a long journey

Through the Gorges of Ch'u-t'ang, of rock and whirling water (15-16)
In these lines we again get a sense of gender relationships that are divided according to conventional norms. The
husband is the one who goes off exploring on his long journey, while the wife, the speaker, stays home waiting for
him. This feeds into the idea that men are the adventurers and explorers, while the woman's job is to stay put and
look after the home.
Gender
Quote #5

And, because of this, my heart is breaking

And I fear for my bright cheeks, lest they fade. (25-26)
Stereotypically, this speaker is a woman who worries about her looks, about her "bright cheeks" fading. Her
preoccupation with looks here again emphasizes (again, according to the stereotype) that we're dealing with a female
speaker here. It's women who have to worry about being pretty, not menwhich is totally unfair, we think. Of course,
the speaker's cheeks are fading because she's heartbroken and she misses her hubby so much. But the fact that she
is worrying about how her cheeks look suggests that the speaker of this poem is a pretty "conventional" woman,
according to thousands of years of patriarchal norms.
Gender

A POEM OF CHANGGAN
DREAMS, HOPES AND PLANS
QUOTES

See more famous quotes from poetry

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1
How we cite our quotes: (Line)
Quote #1

That even unto death I would await you by my post

And would never lose heart in the tower of silent watching (13-14)
The speaker's sure of one thing: no matter what happens, she'll wait for her sweetheart. That's her main planto be
there for her hubby, and wait for him, no matter how long it takes (even if she has to wait until death!).
Dreams, Hopes and Plans
Quote #2

Oh, at last, when you return through the three Pa districts,

Send me a message home ahead! (27-28)
Here we see the speaker expressing her hope for her husband's return. She speaks as if her husband will definitely
return (when in fact we don't actually know that he's going to come back, considering how long he's been away). By
addressing him directly in these lines, we also get a sense of how much the speaker desires to be able to
communicate with her hubby.
Dreams, Hopes and Plans
Quote #3

And I will come and meet you and will never mind the distance,
All the way to Chang-feng Sha. (28-29)
Again, in these final lines the speaker projects her hopes and dreams onto the future. She imagines going to
welcome her sweetheart on his return home. While this is a point where the speaker expresses optimism about the
future, there's also a sense that her hopes and dreams may not be realized. She's hoping for her husband's return,
but we don't actually see that return happen in this poem.
Dreams, Hopes and Plans

A POEM OF CHANGGAN TIME

QUOTES
See more famous quotes from poetry

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How we cite our quotes: (Line)

Quote #1

We lived near together on a lane in Ch'ang-kan,

Both of us young and happy-hearted (5-6)
This poem begins way back in the speaker's childhood, when she's just a little girl playing with a little boy who lives in
the neighborhood. The description of herself and her sweetheart in those childhood days as "young and happyhearted" gives us a sense of the carefree joy that they both felt as children. By beginning in her childhood days, the
speaker frames time as an important theme in the poem.
Time
Quote #2

At fourteen I became your wife (7)

By referencing her age here, the speaker gives us a sense of the years that have passed from her childhood days,
and the changes that have taken place. She's no longer a little kid playing with flowers. She's a wife now.
Time
Quote #3

Your footprints by our door, where I had watched you go,

Were hidden, every one of them, under green moss (19-20)
The image of the husband's footsteps overgrown with green moss conveys just how much time has passed since the
speaker's hubby has left. It's been months and months, and the growing green moss is a strong visual image that
conveys this passage of time.
Time

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How we cite our quotes: (Line)

Quote #4

And the first autumn wind added fallen leaves (22)

By referring to the arrival of the autumn and the changing landscape with its "fallen leaves," the speaker also
emphasizes the passage of time. As she waits, nature changes around her, and there's still no sign of her hubby.
Time
Quote #5

And now, in the Eighth-month, yellowing butterflies

Hover, two by two, in our west-garden grasses (23-24)
The speaker tells us exactly how much time has gone by since her husband's departure: eight months. That's a long
time to be separated from our sweetheart. The speaker here also uses nature imagery to convey the passage of time.
Butterflies have started appearing (which suggests that it might be springtime). The fact that they're described
appearing "two by two" also highlights the speaker's own loneliness. The butterflies are in pairs, whereas she's
separated from her "other half": her hubbysniff.
Time
Quote #6

And because of all this, my heart is breaking

And I fear for my bright cheeks, lest they fade (25-26)
The speaker's cheeks are "fading" because she's sad. But they're also fading because she's growing older as she
waits for her husband's return. By describing how her looks might change, the speaker also indicates how much time
is passing as she sits there waiting for her sweetheart.
Time

A POEM OF CHANGGAN
ISOLATION QUOTES
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How we cite our quotes: (Line)

Quote #1

Then when I was sixteen, you left on a long journey (15)

No biggiethe speaker's hubby has gone away. He'll come back, right? Well, in this poem he doesn't. The husband's
journey is the event that triggers the feelings of loss and isolation that the speaker experiences.

Isolation
Quote #2

And then came the Fifth-month, more than I could bear,

And I tried to hear the monkeys in your lofty far-off sky (17-18)
Only five months into her separation from her husband, the speaker finds that it's really, really hard being separated
from her lover. The fact that she can't "bear" the separation suggests just how lonely she's feeling. She also tries to
overcome her isolation by trying "to hear the monkeys in [his] [] far-off sky." That is, she's trying to imagine and
hear the landscape that he's living in far away from her (which presumably has a bunch of monkeys running around
and making noises).
Isolation
Quote #3

And now, in the Eighth-month, yellowing butterflies

Hover, two by two, in our west garden grasses (23-24)
The image of the yellow butterflies hovering "two by two" gives us a sense of how lonely the speaker feels. She's
noticing that the butterflies are in pairs; they're with their butterfly-sweethearts. But she's alone, without her significant
other (aww).
Isolation

How we cite our quotes: (Line)

Quote #4

And because of all this, my heart is breaking

And I hear for my bright cheeks, lest they fade (25-26)
Here is the first time that the speaker explicitly expresses her sadness: her "heart is breaking." She's so lonely and
isolated, that she's afraid that even her beautiful bright cheeks will "fade." The image of the fading cheeks also
suggests that the speaker may actually be getting physically ill from her isolation. She's becoming pale and sickly
lookingnot good.
Isolation

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A POEM OF CHANGGAN
QUESTIONS

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Bring on the tough stuff - theres not just one right answer.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

The speaker of this poem is a young woman, addressing her husband. How does the poem challenge or
affirm conventional gender roles?
Why does the speaker address her husband directly in this poem, when he isn't there?
How does the speaker convey the passage of time in this poem?
In what ways is this a "coming of age" poem? How does the speaker develop over the course of the poem?
Do we think the speaker's husband is ever going to come back? Is he dead? What parts of the poem
support your answer?

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