Chin Lien

Chin Lien, originally named Chen Chin-lien, was a Taiwanese poet and translator from Changhua County, Taiwan. He spent his entire career working for Taiwan Railways Administration, and the railway became a significant motif for his thoughts and poetry, earning him the name of "Railway Poet". He also received several awards during his lifetime, including the Rong-Hou Poet Award of Taiwan, the Oxford Prize for Taiwanese Writers, the Li Poetry Society Translation Award, and the Taiwan New Literature Special Achievement Award.
During the Japanese rule in Taiwan, Chin Lien wrote poetry in Japanese. He also developed his own poetic ideas and style through extensive reading of literary theories. In addition, his Japanese poem "Under North Wind" was published in Trend Periodical, and he joined the Ying Lin Arts Association in 1948. After overcoming language barriers post World War II, he began writing poetry and translating Japanese poems and poetic theories in Chinese. He also founded the Li Poetry Society, representing a generation that transcended language boundaries. In 2003, Chin Lien published a collection of Chinese poems titled The Origin of the Sea and a collection of Japanese poems titled Pivot.
Lee Kuei-shien noted that Chin Lien's poetry explored the "position of existence" through life while Chen Ming-tai characterized Chin Lien's poetry as having a "concrete yet clear and lyrical" quality. In addition, Chang Te-pen pointed out that Chin Lien's "Railway Poetry'' elevated Taiwan's railway culture to the realm of poetry and contributed to the unique aesthetics of "topographical poetry" in Taiwan. In addition, while applying modern techniques in post-war Taiwanese poetry, Chin Lien's experiments with "poetry film" and "calligram" were notable achievements, though are often overlooked. When Taiwanese poet Yang Chi-chang founded the Le Moulin Poetry Society in the 1930s, advocating surrealist poetry, Chin Lien's series of surrealist poems in the 1950s became a profound response to Yang's assertion about the native poetry scene of Taiwan.