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to implement his vision of national defence. Unheeded, the poet-narrator drifts down canyons and
riverbeds of self-pity, turning a desire to fortify the country's frontier into an indulgence of his own
grievances. Yet in another poem by Gao Shi, the second of “Jimen (Five Poems)” (“Jimen wushou” 蓟
门 五 首 ), the poet-narrator shifts from a selfish paradigm to a selfless censuring of the poor care taken
of the country's own soldiers while prisoners of war are well nourished and clothed:
汉 家 能 用 武
开 拓 穷 异 域
戍 卒 厌 糟 糠
降 胡 饱 衣 食
关 亭 试 一 望
The house of Han 7 is able to use martial power,
Open up lands and exhaust unknown regions.
Common soldiers tire of husks and chaff,
Surrendered Hu are satisfied with their food and clothing.
Taking a look from the frontier post,
吾 欲 涕 沾 臆
8
Tears about to wet my chest. 9
Should “serving one's country” be a core element of frontier poetry, 10 the very fact of there being a
kaleidoscope of treatments of this facet introduces a lack of uniformity into the characteristic, a
possibility which leads Hu to refute undue importance being ascribed to patriotism and yearnings for
the exertion of grand efforts made on behalf of the nation as defining the frontier poetry subgenre.
This potential of multitudinous variations of genre-defining themes is also considered
troublesome by Hu when facing what he presents as another common determining factor constituting
“frontier poetry” as an independent school: whether or not a poem is a direct descendent of frontier
experience. Hu states that several levels of society were affected by the situation on the frontier, from
political leaders to wives whose husbands were absent for years on end, thus indicating that the effects
of frontier activities and policies, as well as the experiences of men serving in such regions, far
7
A reference to the Tang government.
8
GSJJZ, p. 35.
9
Translation follows Marie Chan's with some modifications. See Marie Chan, Kao Shih, p. 92.
10
It is instances such as these in which Hu's essay itself is problematic. In critiquing that which constitutes the “frontier
poetry” subgenre, as well as exposing pitfalls in the notion itself of exclusive schools of poetry, Hu is required a priori
to decide upon qualities which define the frontier poetry subgenre, the very entity criticized in the essay. The qualities
chosen are not themselves absolute but are decided by Hu as well as gleaned from previous writings on the topic,
writings which in turn have their own basis in, and bias towards, preexisting texts addressing the same issue.