Even today I still believe I was born as a poet. When I was a little boy in fourth grade, I began writing poems. My poems were read in classes by literature teachers in high grade classes; and posted on the school wall-column. I began to publish my poems in professional journals when I was in the middle school. I could write in any kind of situations, even when I was in classes, since I had my own schedule or habit to study other than listening to teachers' lectures. Writing just became so natural to me. I really had fun in it. Besides writing Chinese classical style poems and new style poems, I also wrote prose and novels. Some were quite long, more than one hundred pages. Maybe because writing was so natural to me and everyday life became my writing material, I never had a strong desire to publish my novels. I wrote about my classmates, my teachers, my countryside boys and girls and the countryside daily life. I kept writing until I graduated from college. Even then I still have a small dream to write several thousand lines for an ancient hero, Xichu Bawang - Xiangyu. Fortunately or unfortunately, I did not become a professional poet, since I was distracted by my other interests. In the middle school, I began to study calculus and advanced physics, encouraged by my father. I was often asked to explain some calculus problems to high school students including my old sister by a high school math teacher who was my father's friend. He liked me very much and often encouraged to attend his classes. I once struggled in my mind which major to choose for my future. It seemed that I was more fascinated by secrets of the nature. To understand the nature and the state of human being (mind and physical) seems to be my deepest passion. However, it took so long a time until I found my way to science: to use mathematics including statistics to understand biology and to improve human health now.
I love classic music, and sometimes like to sing old songs. Two of my favor composers are Alexander Borodin and Ma Di. I play basketball almost every morning, and sometimes play pingpong or boxing or golf. I also like fencing, but I am not a swordsman; it inherites a poetical ideal of traditional Chinese poets from Qu Yuan and Li Bai.
I love poems written by Li Bai, Walt Whitman, and Alexander Pushkin, also like, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Emily Dickinson. Ling, my younger sister, has a writing style similar to Dickinson's, but my sister's poems are more pure, like a star shining in the sky of a winter night. My old brother always read his poems to me when I was a little boy, but only when my father was not in the presence. He has published many literary works.
A great tragedy was that my Ph.D advisor, Professor Xiao-Song Lin, had an advanced liver cancer, and he died at 49. He is the second American mathematician who encouraged me to come to USA to study topology (the first one is Mark Mahowald in Northwestern University) when I was in Beijing. He has left a lot for me to learn, both as a mathematician and as a person. His friends had edited a book about his life. I wrote several poems to him for this book when he was fighting against the cancer. If you like, you can read them in links listed in the right side. I have a poem collection which's written after I came to US at hand. If you want to take a look, please email to me.
In links listed in the right side, you can find some poems or collections that I love, some music websites, some pictures of my hometown - Xingping - Shaanxi, and some pictures taken by myself, Sophia or friends in California, Ohio, Florida, Texas, Virginia, China, Canada, England, Ireland, etc. In links listed in the left side, you can find interesting personal or institute homepages.
Music
Piece of Prince Igor opera (Borodin)
Piece of Prince Igor music (Borodin)
Piece of In the Steppes of Central Asia (Borodin)
Nostalgia of Hometown (Ma Di)
Reminiscence - collection of emotional music
Ennio Morricone - collection of emotional music
Peoms
Online Collection of Qu Yuan
Tang Peoms with pictures
Collection of Li Bai
Chinese version - Leaves of Grass (Whitman)
A part of my selection - in memory of Prof. Lin
Some of my recent peoms
I write old style poems every weekend, and put
them in WeChat:
天行健 ID wxid_28c0hn1jvh9712
You are welcome to add in
Originally created in 2006, updated on 10/01/2021
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