Thinking through Poetry

“Thinking through poetry” refers to an associative process of poetic structure, through which Du Fu explores a basic issue. In “Getting Rid of the Blues” the poet addresses the question of empire as circulation, “that which goes far.” The antithetical term is the local, “that which cannot go far.” Poetry is something that circulates throughout the empire, but it often carries the image of the local and, through the image, a desire for what even the emperor cannot have: fresh, ripe lychees.