Zheng Min, the last poet of the Nine Leaf Poetry School, died at the age of 102| Zheng Min's selected poems

Source: School of Foreign Chinese Literature, Beijing Normal University

Mr. Zheng Min, a famous Chinese poet, poetry critic and scholar, and professor at the School of Foreign Chinese Literature of Beijing Normal University, died of illness at 7:00 a.m. on January 3, 2022 in Beijing at the age of 102.

Zheng Min, born on July 18, 1920, is a native of Minhou, Fujian. In 1939, he was admitted to Southwest Union University, where he studied philosophy and graduated in 1943. During his studies at southwest United University, he began to write poetry, and began to publish poetry works in 1943, which was highly affirmed by the poetry critics at that time. In April 1949, she published her first collection of poems, Collected Poems 1942-1947, published by the Cultural Life Publishing House in Shanghai, which established her important position in the history of new Chinese poetry. In 1948, he went to Brown University in the United States and received a master's degree in English literature. In 1955, he returned to his homeland and worked at the Institute of Literature of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (formerly known as the Chinese Academy of Sciences) to engage in The Study of English Literature. In 1960, he was transferred to the Department of Foreign Languages of Beijing Normal University to teach.

Mr. Zheng Min has devoted his life to the creation of new Chinese poetry, the study of Chinese and Western poetry, the study of contemporary Western philosophical thought, poetry translation and education and teaching. From the 1940s to the 21st century, her creations have gone through 80 years of ups and downs, and her creative vitality has been enduring. After the reform and opening up in 1979, Mr. Zheng Min's poetry creation has a new brilliance of life, and he has published poetry works such as "Seeking Collection" (1986, which won the Third National Outstanding New Poetry Award of the Chinese Writers Association), "Heart Image" (1991), "Morning I Pick Flowers in the Rain" (1991), "Zheng Min's Poetry Collection (1979-1999)" (2000), and translated and published "Selected Contemporary American Poetry" (1987). Mr. Zheng Min has written a large number of poetry works in his lifetime, especially since the new era of reform and opening up, as an important poet of the "Nine Leaf School", her works have had a broad and far-reaching impact on the development of new Chinese poetry. In 2006, Zheng Min won the "Poet of the Year Award" from the CCTV New Year Poetry Club, and in 2017, he won the Poetry Creation Award of the 6th Zhongkun International Poetry Award.

Mr. Zheng Min has conducted extensive and in-depth explorations in Chinese and Western poetry criticism, poetry aesthetic thought, deconstructivist philosophical thought, Chinese language, culture, etc., with outstanding results and far-reaching influence. Her publications include Studies in Anglo-American Poetry and Drama (1983), Structure-Deconstruction Perspective: Language, Culture, and Criticism (1998), Poetry and Philosophy as Neighbors: Structure-Deconstructed Poetics (1999), and Thinking, Culture, and Poetics (2004). In 2012, the six-volume Zheng Min Anthology was published.

Mr. Zheng Min's poetry pursues a high degree of unity between sensibility and rationality, 'poetry' and 'thought', integrating her concern for human nature and her perception of life into poetic philosophical thinking, and her poems are closely related to the vicissitudes of the times and the fate of Chinese intellectuals. In terms of the aesthetics of poetry creation, her poems focus on the exploration of the heart, showing the confession of the soul, dialectical thinking, beautiful and complex imagery, which has brought major breakthroughs to contemporary poetry. Her exploration of contemporary Western philosophical thought, her thinking on new poetry and Chinese, her concern for the fate of mankind, and her concern for issues such as science and humanistic education all show the courage, responsibility and noble sentiment of a Chinese poet and intellectual to seek truth.

Mr. Zheng Min taught a number of basic English courses in the Department of Foreign Languages of Beijing Normal University (later renamed the School of Foreign Languages and Literatures of the Chinese). In 1981, she began to recruit master's degree students, teaching Shakespeare's plays, British metaphysical poetry, Romantic poetry, British and American modern and contemporary poetry, Chinese modern and contemporary poetry, deconstructivist literary theory and other courses. In 1986, due to Mr. Zheng Min's academic achievements and extensive influence, the Department of Foreign Languages of Beijing Normal University was approved as the first doctoral degree in english discipline of domestic teachers' colleges and universities. In that year, she began to recruit doctoral students, and her research direction was mainly Western dissertation and deconstructivist philosophical thought. During his teaching, Mr. Zheng Min has trained a number of master's and doctoral students, and has worked hard for the teaching and talent training of Beijing Normal University.

Mr. Zheng Min has made outstanding contributions to the development of poetry and education in China.

Poets travel far, poetry lives on!

Mr. Zheng Min is ancient!

All the teachers and students of the School of Foreign Chinese And Literature expressed their deep condolences on the death of Mr. Zheng Min!

School of Foreign Chinese And Literature, Beijing Normal University

January 3, 2022

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Selected poems by Zheng Min

Eternal love

In the dark twilight of the lake,

Slightly cool smooth fish body

You feel it silently escaping

Finally only gently place the tail

Tap your finger and take it away

The whole world, silent

In the garden that gradually sinks into the night fog.

Gazing at the stone statues in the garden,

That clear head and beautiful shoulders

Firm begin to dissolve, retreat in

The haze that floods —

Oh, only the gods can understand

That's in all the pain

After a few moments of sliding, it was pregnant

That eternal tacit understanding.

Golden rice bunches

Golden rice bunches stood

In the fields of autumn that have been cut,

I think of countless tired mothers

On the way at dusk I saw the beautiful wrinkled face

The full moon of harvest day is here

Towering treetops

In the twilight, the distant mountains are

Around our hearts

No statue could be more silent.

Shoulders carry that great tiredness, you

In this stretch out to the far side

The autumn fields bow their heads in contemplation

Silence. Silence. History is nothing more than that

A small river flowing at your feet

And you, stand there

Will become a human thought.

secret

The sky was like a thawed glacier

When the gray cloud cracks and runs;

The gray clouds are like the sails of the stormy sea,

Flocks of birds in the wind fell from the sky rolling in the clouds;

In front of this window, a corner of the blue sky was sacrificed,

It was as if I had glimpsed it for the first time from a chiseled ice cave

The flowing water that has been waiting there for a long time;

There are shadows of spring in the mirror-like sky

A tall tree that does not fall leaves, on its spire

The melancholy of a lengthy winter is like a bird that is raising its wings;

Everything finally stretched out from the chaotic chorus of music.

There was a young man who pushed open the window door,

It's like seeing a glowing white tower in a dream

He lifted up his whole soul

But he wasn't with us

He was listening: far away from the sea, on the mountains, and in the depths of the land.

tree

I never really heard a voice

Like I hear the sound of trees,

When it is sad, when it is melancholy

When it inspires, when it is sentimental

When all sounds

Even in the dark winter night,

You walk through it as it should be

Walk through a people who have lost their national freedom

Can't you hear the sound that is locked in blood7?

When spring comes

It's in every strong arm

Buried are hundreds of babies who are crying.

I never really felt serene

Like I got out of the tree's gesture

It felt so deep

No matter which thought you wake up from

My eyes met it

Standing in that same posture.

Between its arms the star bucket shifts

Under its gaze the stream flows slowly,

Birds come and go in its bosom

And it is always so prayerful, contemplative

It is as if growing in the land of eternal tranquility.

dance

You are willing to pass through a silent space

Accept a revelation from the far side?

When darkness and gentle silence surround you,

In that bright corner

It seems to be in the twilight sky

Mutated with the bright wings of God,

It's like an orchard on an autumn afternoon

A ripe apple lands silently,

Sink into the soft yellow grass.

You are willing to look through the eyes of the heart

Seeing the Body of God?

That rounded arm,

A slowly curved waist

Her feet can be trampled on the water

and not buried,

Her vision is not because

Distance and faint starlight.

Every action of détente and agility

It's all a silent stroke,

Write down the immortal words

People listen, listen, with their hearts

Finally outside of all the body

Find a perfect body,

All beyond the soul,

Find a supreme soul.

Little lacquer maker

He emerged from the darkness that surrounded him

It was like a bright light in the gray sky

The head tilts slightly toward the hand, the hand

That serene and diligent painting down; brilliant

Of colors, for the happiness of people.

His attention flows deeply into his heart,

Like a silent sea, when there are no tides.

He didn't throw a glance at himself outside

Nor has the sun ever warmed his world.

This reminds me of an eternal hand

It was not left behind, there were no breaks

The painted characters, wilderness

Forest, sun and wind and snow

I doubt it makes joy

Also slightly dyed on this frame?

One day he answered my question

Open that innocent eye.

There was no joy and no apprehension

It's just like a pale green of ignorance

Wild, dotted with sparse dewdrops of hope

Its pure light added to my pain

Early spring in the village

I looked at it:

Crouched at the foot of the city,

With a thousand dark brown roofs,

Countless pieces of flying rags

Describe yourself to the universe

Just like the people who live there

Talking, painting, crying out for life

But with their rough skin.

The tip of the tongue of the knowing grace comes from the ripe fruit

Savor: Trees passing by

The stoicism of winter, the confusion of spring

Summer after the wind and rain

The lusciousness of life left behind;

Compassion passes through

This village smiling in the sun

See every long rainy and wet night again

When the roof trembled, the walls shook

Protecting a group of people

Poverty is behind them

Turn into a vicious dog in a bush.

But, now, look at how proudly it opens its heart

Like a well in the heat of summer, the water of sympathy is pumped out to passers-by

It unfolds softly into the landscape

Some people who are considered stupid for no reason,

Their muddy bare feet, tired shoulders

Haggard countenance and neglected lonely heart;

Now, women are doing laundry, children playing,

Dogs are running, light smoke jumps into the sky,

More like a thawed river is the joy that has been locked for a long time,

It began to flow slowly when they saw it

On the treetops, add more sides every night

Green flag of hope.

Lotus Flower (Guan Zhang Da Qian's painting)

This one, with it, seems to never wither

The cup, filled with the joy of blossoming, stands

There it's like a towering mountain

It carries an eternity that people forget to say

That roll, not eager to stretch the childish leaves

Expectations are preserved in a pure heart

Only to cross the hazy water and look at the world

Refuse to also wear old and faded clothes

But what is the real theme?

In this painful performance? This bends

A lotus stalk that hangs the flower deeply

In your roots, it is not the urge of the wind

Traces of rain, however, because it came from the Creator

Bear more life in your hands, this serious burden.

Portrait of a young girl from Renoir

Those who pursue you, from those half-drooping eyes, go into your depths,

They open their eyes but they don't project light to the outside world,

But it is like the entrance to the ocean of souls, from where you have everything

The mind flows back to the calm form, like a tide sucked back by the center of the earth

Now I see your lips, so coldly closed,

It reminds me of the rocky shore that sealed a deep self

Although the abundance of youth has flowed out of your long glowing hair

But you are so pale, still like a dark early spring.

Oh, you're not a star spitting out light, nor are you

Fragrant roses or ripe fruit

But it is a tight closure before spitting, and a bitterness before maturity

Look at how a soul locks itself up tightly

Then it unfolded into the world, and she meditated bitterly and gathered herself

In order to walk towards a world full of love for giving.

Editor: An Qi / Editor: Fu Li / Producer: Zhao Yun

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