Embedded Files
Select Writing and Editorial Projects
Conversations on Dictionaries: Chinese
To understand how Chinese dictionaries came to be, one has to understand the evolution of the Chinese language’s writing system. Chinese dictionary making has long been a continuous yet differentiated effort for scholars to reimagine and re-narrate the history of Chinese character-making and also to provide a road map for the recreation and expansion of Chinese language. From exegesis to calligraphic and phonetic standardization, each dictionary maker proposed a unique model of organizing the Chinese language, providing some limited rationale that connects phonetic, morphemic, and structural elements between characters and, subsequently, words and idioms. This exploration is inevitably a product of ideological and cultural-political forces. From the “write same character” mandate that facilitated the birth of the Qin dynasty to the Chinese latinization reforms in the twentieth century, dictionaries were pushed to the center of a political understanding of ethnic and ideological unity in the Chinese-speaking sphere.
October 2025. Cambridge University Press.
Chapter with Ilan Stavans: "On Decidophobia"
Poets Ilan Stavans and Haoran Tong converse on the choices they have made as translingual poets, i.e., poets that synthesize different linguistic elements and experiences in their creative work. Does a poet benefit from knowing more than one language? In what way do translingual poets approach their craft differently than their monolingual counterparts? Should translingual poets be understood as “self-translators”? Is translingualism a form of rebellion? How do we make home in, across, and between languages?
Home Is a Verb: Selected Poems of Haoran Tong
A collection of poems in English and Chinese (with English translation) by Haoran Tong from 2019 to 2025. Tong’s anticipated collection Home Is a Verb weaves elegant imagery with philosophical depth, exploring the idea that “home” is not a fixed place but an ongoing act of being and becoming. His poems, informed by translingual perspective and transcultural insight, blends lyricism with contemplation, showing how belonging is both a movement and a meditation. Tong’s voice is both graceful and thoughtful, inviting readers into a sensibility that is at once refined and deeply reflective.
Forthcoming 2026.
Requiem: Ceaseless Life (Libretto)
Commissioned libretto for Requiem. This requiem is in many ways an exploration of the question “how we celebrate life by commemorating death.” It uses the choir as an alter ego of the passed character, and as a consequence, the very purpose of this requiem is to lead the individual to inner peace by reflecting on and reconciling with many narratives of life. “Ceaseless life” is an everlasting concept from Chinese philosophy, originally featured in the Book of Changes. It highlights the organic connections between living an individual life “as is” and contributing to the life of humanity “as a whole”. This libretto is a humble attempt at resituating our conditions in the scope of human history, viewing “death” as a necessary and important component to complete, elevate, and continue an individual’s living experience. The libretto is dedicated to those experiencing loss. A ceaseless life lives within us despite our finite spacetime, here and now. A ceaseless life integrates our loss into its infinite embrace; it gives us the courage to beat on with memories of the past and visions of the present.
Subject to dual copyright of music composer. Reach out for a read-only, distribution-prohibited copy of libretto sans music.
Memories of Home: Exhibition on Belonging
Haoran Tong presented items for exhibition, a poem written in calligraphy composed during mid-autumn festival . During keynote presentation, Tong shared his experience of being shaped by feelings of distance and solitude, and how many international students “don’t realize where our home is until we discover a place we don’t call home.” Tong’s submission contained several elements of cultural crossover, including a poem written in Chinese on paper meant for Western drawing, using a pen he got from the Science Center.
Our Story Keeps Writing Itself
Haoran Tong delivered his original poem to inaugurate Michael A. Elliott, Twentieth President of Amherst College.
Poetry in the Pandemic: An Anthology
Haoran Tong's editorial project brings a college community together by inviting all members—students, faculty, staff, family, and town members—to participate in this collective, meditative exercise of poetry writing while practicing social distancing. The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way we live, socialize, and communicate with nature. Ever since the outbreak, stay-at-home measures have been imposed to protect the vulnerable community for the sake of public health. Faces are masked, interactions are distanced, routines are interrupted. Natural disasters and man-made diseases combined put our humanity at great stake, and poetry evokes the power of empathy and unity to bring people together against injustice. Amidst uncertainty and anxiety, poetry brings us hope, inspiration, and reflection. If the consoling and unifying power of poetry is forgotten in ordinary times, it is becoming ever more influential and desirable in trying times. Poetry reminds us of our inner qualities of empathy, unity, and freedom.
To encourage the members of the Amherst community to lead a poetic life and overcome the difficult circumstances, Haoran Tong creates a platform of poetry reading and writing. Alumni, faculty, staff, students, and families of Amherst College share their thoughts and expressions with others by submitting poems they have read or written during the pandemic. They may also provide a brief explanation of how they resonate with the poems in the context of the pandemic.
Project is generously sponsored by the Emily Dickinson Museum, the WAMH college radio, and the OLIO 2020 editorial.
TED Talk: Poetry's Rebirth Through Social Media
Poet Haoran Tong discusses how social media can both break and make poetry. He argues that social media has revitalized poetry by transforming it from a solitary art into a collective form of visual storytelling—poems now intermingle with images, captions, and sound to reach new audiences. He shares how platforms like Instagram encourage creative experimentation, remix culture, and collaboration, allowing poetry to thrive through meme‑like formats and wide, immediate sharing. Ultimately, he sees this digital ecosystem not as poetry’s demise, but its reinvention, in which expressive language benefits from algorithm‑driven discovery and a democratized creative community. TEDxAmherst College Fall 2019.
Poetic Fantasies (Vol. 1–5)
"People seem to have lost faith in the power of fantasy." Haoran Tong says, and then adds: Sometimes, people mock each other for having “nothing else but fantasy in their mind”. As far as the dictionary meaning goes, fantasy is not so much concerned with the fact that we do imagine, but the inherent power that we can imagine. And—We are born to imagine. But why do we rely on poetry to narrate fantasy? According to the American novelist Jesmyn Ward, poetry is the language of infinite possibility in the most compact form. Fantasy allows us to operate and experience in a world outside of the confines of language. And this collection perfectly integrates poetry with fantasy." (H. Tong)
Anthology of poets in Poets Unite Worldwide. Tong authored the introduction and several submissions.
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