The poem To the Oak has been in contact for a long time and can be said to be Shu Ting's masterpiece. In this poem, we can see that Shu Ting's creative style is fresh and elegant, with no flowery rhetoric or passionate cries, but more simple and sincere feelings.
What I see from To the Oak is an independent woman who keeps her personality independent and affirms her self-worth and dignity. She doesn't want to be a "climbing Campbell flower" to show off herself with high branches, nor do she want to be a "spoony bird" to "repeat monotonous songs for the shade". The love she wants should no longer be an attachment, but an independent personality and freedom, which should be equal: "I must be a kapok beside you and stand with you in the image of a tree."
At the end of the poem, Shu Ting wrote such a sentence: "I love not only your stalwart body, but also your stand and the land under your feet!" This poem is meaningful, which makes the whole poem sublimate and seems to be no longer limited to the love between men and women. Shu Ting expressed a broader and deeper theme with "kapok" and "oak" as symbols. As Shu Ting herself said: "Today, people urgently need respect, trust and warmth. I am willing to use poetry as much as possible to express my concern for' people'. "