美麗島是臺灣在歷史上的一個想像地方,至今語意上的挪用甚為普遍,但具體的空間挪用並不多見;其中,要屬高雄捷運美麗島站的城市象徵地景最為顯著。高雄逾越全臺、臺北的掠美之舉,不應被視為是基礎建設上的成就,而應是美麗島想像的在地再現,背後的掠美能動其實是在地獨有的文學運動。而此文學若從詩人詩作的詩意空間觀(Saunders 2010)視野來看的話,將更能顯現出高雄自清代至今,如何由他者、抵抗至異質空間(heterotopia)的轉變過程中,敘說一首從邊緣、抗爭到展現包容的城市史詩。這首以文學地理為情節框架的史詩,透露了詩人們的心景(inscape),也讓人由此得以「看見」美麗島在高雄的再現、理解美麗島站所象徵的美麗島精神。
Ilha Formosa is an appellation for Taiwan in some chronicles, and has acquired multiple usages over the years. However, appropriating Ilha Formosa for a concrete space is rather uncommon. The most striking and symbolic construction using the name is perhaps the urban landscape in Kaohsiung Rapid Transit's Formosa Boulevard Station. The preemptive action taken by Kaohsiung to create this urban landscape should not be regarded as an infrastructure achievement, but instead as a local representation of "Ilha Formosa" imagery. The dynamic behind such preemptive action is a literary movement that is specific to Kaohsiung. Examining this movement from the perspective of spatial poeticism of poetry (Saunders 2010), the urban landscape depicts an epic tale of how Kaohsiung has been transformed from the marginalized other space, the resistant space, to today's heterotopia space which emphasizes tolerance, from the Qing dynasty to the present day. This grand epic describes an adventure of literary geography, revealing the inscape of poets and enabling everyone to "see" the representation of Ilha Formosa in Kaohsiung, and thus appreciate the symbolic spirit of the station.