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. At 7:00 a.m. on January 3, 2022, Mr. Zheng Min died of illness in Beijing at the age of 102.
Chinese new poetry has gone through a hundred years of history so far, in this long river of winding and mighty history, there are countless poets who have dedicated their lives to the birth, development and innovation of new poetry, and the "Nine Leaves School" poetry crowd is a turbulent rapid in the long river of singing poetry, stirring the active vitality of new poetry. In the 1940s, it breathed fresh breath of life from the wind from the west, bringing the power of new poetry to life, and after the reform and opening up, the poetry circle glowed with new brilliance, injecting fresh energy into the comprehensive innovation of new poetry. Today, the only remaining leaf among the "Nine Leaves" poets, Mr. Zheng Min, who is already a hundred years old, has come to us with her never-ending footsteps, exuding the agility of her poet and the calmness of a wise man, bringing us from the present to the future.
As one of the "nine leaves" poets, Mr. Zheng Min's poems have begun to bloom its bright colors in the 1940s, and have experienced wind and rain in the change of the four seasons and the changes of history, radiating a more bright and rich color, becoming a tall tree of the century. Mr. Zheng Min's poetry creation has gone through a journey of nearly 80 years, which is rare in the history of Chinese new poetry. While studying at Southwest United University, she began to try to compose her first poem, "Evening Party", when she was fortunate to receive the teachings of her mentor, Mr. Feng Zhi. In 1943, on the recommendation of Mr. Feng Zhi, Mr. Zheng Min's first batch of poems, including "Evening Party", "Change", "Pity", and "Winter Afternoon", were first published in the first issue of "Tomorrow's Literature and Art" in Guilin, and thus began her lifelong poetry journey. After that, her poems were published in newspapers and periodicals such as the Ta Kung Pao Zhou Wen art edited by Mr. Feng Zhi. In 1949, Zheng Min, who was studying in the United States, received her first collection of poems, Collected Poems 1942-1947, edited by Mr. Ba Jin and published by the Shanghai Cultural Life Publishing House. The collection of poems incorporates the essence of her early poems. At that time, the poetry was subtle and quiet, with a lonely and lonely mood, and the faint color blended with rich sensibility, which had no lack of thought connotations, but also a kind of leaping spirituality, showing the pursuit of the inner spirit of the self and the desire for the inner connotation of life in the hazy mood of youth. In Loneliness there is a verse like this: "I think of someone who is in the pain of self-fire / Seeking the final rest of 'piety', / I will also be in the bite of 'loneliness' / Finding the most serious meaning of 'life' / ... I threw all the small, ridiculous, obscene/emotions of man into his boundlessness, / and then saw:/ Life turned out to be a rolling river. (written in 1943) This is the longest of her earlier poems, and the most philosophical of her period's poems, conveying her efforts in loneliness to seek the meaning of the coexistence of life in the world, and although the existence of each individual is lonely, loneliness is the possibility of the reality of life and symbiosis with all things. The poems are deep, thick and full of unique insights. "Golden Rice Bunch" (published in 1943) was also written during this period, and the solemn and affectionate stroke of sculpture combines the image of the human mother who carries all life and the golden rice bunch, which is the image of life in nature, highlighting the power to shake the heart. It can be said that from the early days of Mr. Zheng Min's poetry creation, her poems already had the consciousness of integrating poetry and thought. This stems from her sensitive and thoughtful nature, and is also closely related to her study experience at Southwest United University. In 1939, Mr. Zheng Min was admitted to the Southwest United University, and she originally wanted to study English literature, and she resolutely decided to change her application to the Department of Philosophy when she enrolled, which determined her lifelong poetry style and academic path, so that her creation was integrated into the depth of thought and the meaning of philosophy at the beginning. During his studies at Southwest United University, Mr. Feng Youlan's "Philosophy of Life", Mr. Zheng Xin's "Kant", Mr. Tang Yongtong's "Wei Jin Metaphysics" and other courses, as well as Mr. Feng Zhi's "Goethe" and his teachings, all had a crucial impact on Zheng Min, who was new to the poetry world. Especially after reading Mr. Feng Zhi's "Fourteen Elements", the deep philosophical thoughts condensed behind the rich lyricism gave her soul a strong shock. This allows her early poems to incorporate rational tones into a quiet, restrained sensibility, and the poems and thoughts are intertwined and woven together, with colorful colors and pleasant symphonies.
In 1948, Mr. Zheng Min crossed the ocean to study at Brown University in the United States. Originally, she wanted to study English literature at Southwest United University, and her trip to the United States to study was the realization of her original dream. However, her 8 years of study in the United States have gained far more than the study and influence of English literature, and more importantly, she has gained a comprehensive understanding of Western culture. After completing her research thesis on the 17th-century English poet John Don and earning her degree, she also studied vocal music under the tutelage of the Juilliard School of Music. Western painting, music, architecture and other cultures are deeply immersed in her body and have become indispensable elements to nourish the growth of her poetic art. In fact, Mr. Zheng Min's early poems have already shown the penetration of Western culture, and there are many poems with Western music and painting as the theme in the Poetry Collection 1942-1947. Years of experience in the United States have enabled her to have a more systematic understanding and understanding of Western thought, culture and artistic traditions, providing a wealth of ideological accumulation and artistic nourishment for the rapid growth of her poetry creation after the reform and opening up. Although after a 30-year pause in poetry, when she picked up the poetry pen again, a more flexible disposition and a more somber, fuller, and thicker philosophy jumped out of the poem, which was inseparable from her years of immersion in Western culture.
In the 1980s after the reform and opening up, the spirituality of poetry stirred up again in Mr. Zheng Min's heart, so that her body and mind were given a new life. With her in-depth understanding and understanding of Western modern and contemporary poetry and deconstructivist thought, her thinking and mind have been stimulated and awakened again and again, and her poetry and thought have reached the supreme state of natural integration. Between 1986 and 2010, Mr. Zheng Min published a number of poetry collections: "Seeking Collection" (1986), "Heart Image" (1991), "Morning, I Pick Flowers in the Rain" (1991), "Zheng Min Poetry Collection (1979-1999)". Since then, she has published more than 100 poems in various poetry and literary magazines, and her poetry has become more and more skilled, involving a wider range of subjects and horizons, while the wisdom and philosophy in the poems have become deeper and thicker.
In 1986, her Quest was published. Although some of her early 1980s poems were still somewhat conceptualized, and the spirituality of poetry had not yet been fully released, the tendency of her poetry to incorporate philosophical thinking into vivid imagery became more pronounced. In "The Ephemeral Flower Opens Quietly Again (I)" (published in 1984), we see the verse, "What has existed will always exist, / Although people have fallen asleep, / Even the acacia tree closes its eyes, / They will smell the fragrance of ephemeral flowers in their dreams, / This ocean of deep into people's consciousness ... What has existed will always exist, / Although you and I do not know her coming, / Although at sunrise she will depart, / Only a low-hanging white neck remains. "It is a poem about ephemeral flowers blooming silently at night, implying that a short-lived beauty, although silent, will leave an eternal mark. However, this is not a poem that simply writes about ephemeral flowers, the poet associates this fleeting existence of ephemeral flowers with the eternity of life, so that the flow of time and eternity produce infinite tension, forming a contrast and also constituting an echo. Like the early "Loneliness", that lonely existence contains the opportunity to coexist with all life, and this short-blooming ephemeral flower is nurturing the eternity of life, because the past history always carries the imprint of the present and brings people into the future river of time. This poem, which exudes a rich fragrance of ephemeral flowers, blends deep philosophies with a femininity of intensity. At the same time, this is not a simple fusion of beauty and philosophy of the occult poetry, it also has a strong sense of history and the atmosphere of the times. In the early 1980s, people who lived through special times had a deep memory of the past history, but beautiful things always left people with eternal spiritual echoes, even if it was only a momentary bloom. A group of poems in the "Search Collection" is "Time of Contemplation", most of which reflect the poet's dialectical thinking on history, life, and existence in that period, such as "Hope and Disappointment" (written in 1979), which shows the transformation and dialectical existence of history between the troughs of disappointment and the peaks of hope; "Let's Walk in the Shade of Trees" (written in 1979), thinking that life is tantamount to the destruction of life if it receives too strong sunshine; "Ancient Corpse" (Written in 1981) finds the immortal life of youth in the message of death that has disappeared into the ancient times; "The Dialectical World, The Poetry of Dialectics - A Dialectical Tree" expresses the reflection on the eternal and changeable world, the dialectical understanding of the compatibility of "one" and "many"; and the long poem "The Second Childhood and the Sea", completed in 1982, considers the inevitability of history ushering in a new life like the sea after experiencing the rolling waves... Compared with the quiet, fresh and clear works of the early years, these poems have increased the strength of thought and the color of the times, and have a more solemn sense of historical heaviness and humanistic temperament.
In 1985, Mr. Zheng Min was invited to lecture at the University of California, San Diego College of Letters. During this period, she read a lot of American post-World War II poetry and gained a deep understanding of the role of openness, experimentation and unconsciousness in contemporary Western poetry in poetry creation. At the same time, the deconstructivist trend that swept through Europe and the United States in the second half of the 20th century had a huge ideological impact on her. She recognized that after World War II, the Western intellectual circles had gradually moved out of the confines of metaphysical rationality since the ancient Greek period, opened up the concept of thinking that dissolved the absolute center and duality, and advocated eternal change and the pluralistic symbiosis of culture and meaning. In fact, before she came into contact with deconstructivist thought, Mr. Zheng Min's poems were already pregnant with philosophical thoughts that sought eternal change and open pluralistic symbiosis, so she had a strong ideological resonance with Derrida's deconstructivist philosophical theory. She combines the ideas and artistic characteristics of Anglo-American postmodern poetry creation with deconstructed thinking and Freud's unconscious theory for thinking and exploration, and integrates these thoughts and artistic concepts into her poetry creation with unique personal sensibilities, so that her poetry has begun a new journey of poetry and thought.
In the 1991 book of poems "Heart Image", Mr. Zheng Min began to integrate the subconscious spiritual impulse into her creation, the expression of the poem exudes a very free breath and flexible emotions, the use of language is more flexible and jumpy, and the thinking of the times and the "understanding" of life are more vivid. In "Mental Elephant Group Poems (One)" (published in 1986), there is a poem that shocks the heart, "Longing: A Male Lion". In the poem, she portrays the strong subconscious impulse in her heart as a lion with vigorous vitality, as if to break through the cage of body and consciousness, release all the energy, and listen to the "roar of the times", but at the same time, it echoes and fits with the inner emotions of "I", and the two form a harmonious tension, there is a conflicting existence, and it is tacit with each other. This is a vivid, dynamic and explosive poem, which is different from the previous poetry style. In the following poem" "We Stand", a silent thought is revealed: "We can't see anything / But conscious of its existence / Outside of us / Asking to enter us / The song of the harvest perchs on / The dark woods / The breasts of the beautiful nurturer / / Silence fills the emptiness / Silence, the silent land of the tacit understanding / The confluence of life, the outer, the inner / You, me, the universe" If the previous poem highlights the vitality of the subconscious, then, This poem makes people feel the realization of all things, the world and the other in tranquility, and this "enlightenment" connects the individual's self-life, the external other's life, and the cosmic life to form a "one" of multiple lives. Poetry is more unrestrained in terms of imagery and language expression, with a sense of jumping motion, but the emotions are calm, as if sinking into the boundlessness of the universe in a silent silence. It can be seen that Mr. Zheng Min's poems at this time have a strong philosophical fantasy, go deep into the inner subconscious, and look for the change of life and the eternity of time in the flow of the subconscious. "Mental Image" contains several groups of poems, including "My Oriental Soul", "Autumn Suite", "No Longer Exists", "Nudity", "Blue Poem", "Heavy Lyric Poem". Some poems are full of sensual rich colors and musical tones, but the strength of the thought is also enhanced. For example, in "My Oriental Soul" (published in 1987), there is a poem "Listening to Shakuhachi", which has such a verse: "This is the siphon of the soul / Gently open your lips / Suck away the breath of the listener / Through a secret path" This is about the feeling of listening to the Japanese shakuhachi (a kind of Japanese bamboo pipe) master playing, the listener's soul seems to be absorbed by strange and beautiful music, and the heart wanders with the music. The music, on the other hand, takes the listener through the reverie of life, existence, and death: "Vast space—/ The deep valley of contemplation/Waking up in outer space/Waking up and falling asleep again/... The soul is /gathered and dispersed/caressed and crushed/torn and mixed/ingested and forgotten/... No longer knows/What life is, what death is/... When the body loses the consciousness of life / I get life ... / Existence cannot be touched / Wordlessly eats away at everything / Only the blue sky is left". The poet does not give people any answers to life, death, love, dreams, etc., but leaves traces of her thoughts, allowing people to appreciate the connection between music and the empty life and the universe, and to feel the soul pulsating and the thoughts taking off in the call of music. The general tone of the poems "No Longer Exists" is quiet and quiet, but the thoughts in it add to the ethereal atmosphere. Among them, "Two Empty Chairs - A Contemporary Dutch Painting" writes that the poet imagines the two empty chairs in the painting, explores the relationship and essence of the non-existent existence and the void that exists, and reveals the philosophical speculation, but the poem is not beyond the mystery of life, but reflects the past life, the traces that once existed in life and the current void, enlightening people's thinking about life. The poem "Mature Loneliness" (published in 1989) echoes the early poem "Loneliness", the image is still fresh, but the vision is much broader, time, space, self, other, life, the universe... The tentacles of thought enter the vast infinity, which is evocative, and the eternal search for the unknown and the changing life becomes the protagonist of the poem.
Written by Zhang Yan (left) and Mr. Zheng Min
In Mr. Zheng Min's poems, there is always a existence beyond time and limited life calling to her, and the thoughts in the poems contain far-reaching philosophical meanings, but her thinking is not far from history and reality, which is a reflection on history and a percussion of reality. "The Poet and Death (Nineteen Poems)", created in the 1990s, is Mr. Zheng Min's masterpiece in his later years. The accidental death of the "Nine Leaves" poet Tang Qi due to a medical accident triggered Mr. Zheng Min's deep thinking on life and death, she linked the personal tragedy with the fate of that generation of intellectuals, and put this ordeal fate in the long river of human history, with a long vision, grand momentum, sincere feelings, and jumping out of imagery, including many deep speculations, reaching a high degree of integration of poetic conception and profound thought. The poem reads: "Who, who is it / Whose powerful fingers / Break this winter daffodil / Let the white juice overflow / / Emerald green, green stems?" The psalmist questions the unforgiving history, showing a search for truth and justice; "Those doubtful eyes / Looking at the sunset behind the clouds / Full of fantasy and innocence / Reluctantly blinded by death", which is the struggle between beauty and ideals against ignorance and death, and beauty suffers merciless destruction; "We are all flamingos / Step on red flames all our lives / Through hell, burn off the overpass / No groan of loss of identity / / Yet we envy flamingos / Find sweet water in the grass / In the grass there is a boundless sky of the mimes / they will take off suddenly, bright red thin feet drooping back". Here, the poet transforms the immortal spirit into a high-flying flamingo, through the calcination of hell, glowing with radiant flames, taking off into the air and flying towards the vast sky. The spirit of the poet is immortal. This flamingo image with a distinct symbolic meaning pushes the poet's inner longing, firm faith, and immortal spirit into a distant existence, where the hope of eternal life is born.
Life and death are the eternal themes of Mr. Zheng Min's poems, and they are also problems that everyone must face. In Mr. Zheng Min's mind, life is always an unfinished process, and death is the beginning of another life, which forms a complete cycle, but the regeneration after death is sublimated into an infinite life eternity. In her poem "The Last Birth", published in 2003, she cast the final destination of her life on the distant starry sky, becoming one with the vast universe. "An endless inky blue night sky / Studded with billions of sparkling gems / The starlight seems to be touchable / I know I'm done / The last birth: / A tiny particle re/Floating in the body of the Mother of the Universe / I haven't disappeared / From a distant galaxy / I'm listening to the message of mankind". The final end of life is to complete the final birth, to return to the body of the Mother of the Universe, but that is not the end of life, it will not disappear, but exists in another way, in the distant interstellar world, listening to the information of human beings, paying attention to the fate of human beings, where there is hunger, war, desire, human beings are subject to various tests, there is still a long way to go, and the final usher will be the joy of love and immortality. The poem shows that Mr. Zheng Min crossed the boundaries of time and space with her broad and broad mind in his later years, penetrated the impermanence of life and death, linked the life of the individual with the fate of mankind, and completed her final birth. In Mr. Zheng Min's life, the realm of poetry and thought merging into one runs through the whole process, never going far, never ending.
Mr. Zheng Min, a hundred-year-old, told people on her birthday: "Every day I feel that I have not finished, I have never felt that I have reached the highest place, I always feel that I cannot finish my own road, and I can always finish one thing and immediately see another thing there." People will quietly see some kind of progress in this world, and in the process they will have new feelings. The world is complex, but it is understandable and changing, so he moves forward with hope. "Life is an indestructible process, thinking never stops, and in this process, every day ushers in fresh experiences and feelings, which eventually condense into the soul of poetry." This is the eternal vitality of Mr. Zheng Min and her poems.