A Bridge of Cultures

On Saturday, October 11, 2025, poet and multimedia artist Maxine Silverman interviewed Dr. Guohua Li, Finster Professor of Epidemiology and Anesthesiology and the founding director of the Center for Injury Epidemiology and Prevention, about his new book Gorman Ponds: A Haiku Journal (Austin Macauley Publishers). The conversation was hosted by Ray Mak at Curio Room, Mount Kisco, New York and was attended by a roomful of people alongside live streaming. Here is an excerpt of the conversation.

Silverman: Throughout Gorman Ponds you express great respect for nature and joy in your interactions with everything from bird calls and varieties of flowers to astronomy. Have you always been enthralled by the natural world, even as a boy?

Li: Yes, I have always been fascinated by the natural world. I was born in a rural villagein Hubei Province in central China and was a typical farm boy. I grew up surrounded by domestic animals and wildlife and nurtured by the natural environment. While a child, I spent most of the time with my friends roaming around the fields and foraging in the rivers, ponds, and woods. Farmers worldwide have a special relationship with the natural world. They are humble and respectful to Mother Nature because they understand their livelihoods depend on her.

Silverman: What part, if any, does your medical/scientific training play in your work? 

Li: It is impossible to overstate the role medical and scientific training plays in my writing. The purpose of medicine and public health is to improve human conditions by treating illness, relieving pain, reducing suffering, and fostering an environment where people can thrive and stay healthy. Therefore, medical and public health training instilled in me an acute sense of humanity, humility, and service. On the other hand, scientific training has given me a unique framework to approach writing, including integrity, clarity,and precision. Science is defined as systematized knowledge. Individual haiku poems may appear fragmented and disordered. But when they are put in a particular setting and time dimension, they become systematized and form a whole like the constellation of stars.

Silverman: In many of your haiku you bestow human feelings on flora and fauna. For example,  "Phlox": In a shady grove/the soul of dead trees lingers/ over the pink hue. I know you too well to assume this is an accident. Does this practice reflect spiritual beliefs or personal philosophy?

Li: Haiku is a genre of imagism and minimalism. It is about human-environment interactions. The imagery depicted in a haiku would be no more than a photo or a painting if it lacks symbolism. Long before the modernism movement, humans had attached cultural significance to certain objects, such as flowers and birds. Phlox is a native wildflower. Native Americans use it to treat a host of illnesses, such as indigestion and diarrhea. Indigenous people are highly spiritual. They believe phlox are symbols of harmony and love, and can help connect them with their relatives, alive and dead. The woodland phlox that inspired this haiku were blooming in the woods amid a few dead trees. I thought trees might have souls too. When they die, their spirit appears in these pinkish and mysterious phlox flowers.

Silverman: In your earlier book, Beauty That Is Never Old, you translate 19th century American poetry into Mandarin, and it seems to me the haiku, an Asian verse form, is a kind of translation too. Can we talk a little about the haiku form itself?

Li: I did not receive any formal liberal arts education. I studied American poetry by translating American poems into Chinese. The poems I translated were written in the 18th and 19th centuries by hundreds of authors from all walks of life, mostly women, African Americans, and Native Americans. Now I have realized that translation is an effective way of intensive learning. Haiku as a verse form originated in Japan about 1000 years ago. It was born out of ancient Chinese poetry and painting, particularly five-character quatrains and idyllic landscape drawings in the Han and Tang Dynasties. Haiku was first introduced to American readers in the early 20th century. Since then, it has gained a lot of popularity in North America and Europe.

Silverman: In American public elementary schools, haiku is taught early on because the 5-7-5 syllabic line offers an easy introduction to the craft of writing poems. Later, we hope, students come to recognize and admire the impressionistic nature of this verse form. How does the brevity of the form support what you want to convey? 

Li: Oh, now I understand why Haiku is so popular in the United States, thanks to our schoolteachers. My motivation to write this book was to pay my tribute to the small village park that sheltered my body and nurtured my soul during the COVID-19 pandemic. My goal was to record random encounters and fleeting thoughts during my daily walk in the village park throughout the year. Haiku is a simple art form of entertainment and intimacy. Its brevity was especially appealing as it allowed me to complete the composition instantly with my mobile phone.

Silverman: Do traditional haiku use grammar or do the line breaks act as the pause such as a comma in English? I don't speak either Japanese or Chinese so I don't know if there are titles and capital letters in traditional haiku. You do employ these conventions. Does that reflect who your intended audience is? Who is your intended audience?

Li: The short answer is no. Traditional haiku was written in Chinese characters in a vertical column from right to left. Ironically, haiku has never gained much appreciation in China. The English form of Haiku is not exactly the same as the Japanese version. Even the basic structure of three lines with 5, 7, and 5 syllables, respectively, is a deviation from translation. Because the basic structure is somewhat debatable, it is not followed uniformly by English haiku writers. However, there exists a consensus that a good haiku poem should include a seasonal reference and a “cutting word.” I followed the basic structure and used a seasonal reference whenever I could. The “cutting word” is not necessarily a real word. Rather, it is a punctuation sign, such as a dash or a colon, which is often omitted for simplicity. The function of the “cutting word” is to divide the haiku poem into two parts. That is, it helps the speaker to pivot and create the startlement effect. In essence, the “cutting word” is akin to the volta in a sonnet. My intended audience is nature lovers, irrespective of age, gender, education attainment, occupation, and geographic region. Japanese is a partially logographic language. Western punctuation signs were not introduced to East Asia until the 1880s. It is worth noting that Chinese and Japanese writing systems do not have upper and lower cases.

Silverman: The haiku "George Washington Bridge" goes Over the Hudson/the East shakes hands with the West/meeting my mission. How much does emigrating from your homeland affect your sensibility?

Li: I was a young adult when I came to the states. As a first-generation immigrant, I live and operate in the margins as I am perpetually trapped between two cultures. Denying this reality could wreak serious psychological trauma. It was a long struggle for me to recognize this predicament and accept it. Crossing the George Washington Bridge is part of my daily commuting routine. It is a magnificent structure. This haiku poem is my tribute to the bridge. In addition to making the Hudson River passable, she enlightened me to realize that as an immigrant, I could play a positive role by serving as a bridge to connect people of different cultures and backgrounds. I also play this part in the workplace by facilitating interdisciplinary collaborations among colleagues working in different schools and academic divisions. When Beauty That Is Never Old was published in Shanghai last year, I felt euphoric because I thought I had played a little role as a cultural bridge between the two countries I love so dearly.

Silverman: Throughout you interject realities of politics, war and climate change into the repose of your daily walk in Gorman Ponds. Would you say these concerns are derived from your love of the natural world—your fear for the future?

Li: Probably both and beyond. It is impossible to completely cut off from what is goingon in the world. In a democratic society, everyone has a role to play in politics and everything is related to politics. Public health is ultimately politics. The ongoing shutdown of our federal government centers on an issue about medical insurance coverage and access to healthcare. War is a form of political violence. Climate change is an existential threat to humanity. Literature does not exist in a vacuum. Poets cannot escape from politics. Walking in the nature preserve does not shield me from theseconcerns. Sometimes, it heightens my anxiety about politics, war, and climate change. But once I put the concerns in words, I feel a sense of relief and comfort. Maybe that is why art is therapeutic.

Silverman: As a poet myself, I especially enjoyed learning terminology such as collective nouns (bale of turtles), the specificity of horaltic pose or pyrope garnets, that loipen is plural cross country skiing trails, the way you incorporate mythology and horticultural terms such as "ivory prince" which is a variety of the plant hellebore. There's a playfulness in this way of conveying information that I admire, but I must admit my favorites are the ones that take me by surprise in their tender last line. "Black Locust": The old black locust/stands by the trail quietly/like my kind father; and "Mourning": On the frozen ponds/geese and ducks have disappeared/ along with my friend.

Li: Thank you for the kind words! As a scientist, I aspire to be a scholar of originality, simplicity, and clarity. I admire the breadth and depth of the English language. Its vast vocabulary makes it possible to strive for original and precise expression although it could be frustrating for non-native speakers like me. A case in point is the collective noun skein for a flock of wild geese. But what is most challenging to me is the use of specific verbs for specific contexts. The startlement effect is a virtue of haiku. In the poem “Mourning," the “cutting word” is the omitted dash sign at the end of the second line, which separates the first two lines from the third line.

Silverman: As we wind up our conversation, is there anything else you'd like to talk about?

Li: I cannot thank you and your husband Dr. Howard Andrews enough for your guidance and support! The forewords you wrote for Gorman Ponds and Beauty That Is Never Old are literary gems in themselves. They are insightful, incisive, and inspirational. I feel fortunate to get to know you and Howard. I enjoyed this conversation and would like to thank our host Mr. Mak for his hospitality.