In the early morning of January 3, when Mr. Zheng Min's female disciple Zhang Yan informed me of Mr. Zheng Min's death, I was momentarily stunned. Although Zheng Min is already a centenarian, I have the impression that she is only old, and there is no serious illness, and with her physical condition, she will definitely be able to survive for a few more years. But the unfortunate news still came, and I fell into deep mourning.
Zheng Min is a marvel of contemporary Chinese poetry. From entering the Southwest United University in 1939, writing her first poem under the leadership of Mr. Feng Zhi, until the beginning of the 21st century, she engaged in poetry writing for more than 70 years, which can really be described as a tree of the century in the Chinese poetry world that has stood up through the wind, frost, rain and snow.
In the 1990s, Zheng Min wrote "My Alice", telling the story of his decades of poetry creation, which was a spiritual journey experienced by a representative Chinese intellectual in the 20th century. Despite decades of setbacks, ups and downs and tribulations, whether in poverty, war, or in the face of turbidity and catastrophe, for Zheng Min, poetry is the little girl who is deep in her heart and buried in the unconscious- Alice, quiet and quiet, and no wind, frost, rain and snow can hurt her.
The Alice in her heart guides Zheng Min's poetry path in the dark. In 1939, Zheng Min was admitted to the Southwest United University and entered the Department of Philosophy. Southwest United University is full of famous teachers, two of whom have had a major impact on her life and creative tao. One of the two teachers was her German teacher, Feng Zhi, who in 1942 said a sentence when she presented her first poem to Mr. Feng Zhi: "This is a very lonely road." This sentence made Zheng Min have a full spiritual preparation for the future fate, and since then she has ushered in the blossoming and falling of the poetry world with a lonely state of mind, and spent a long time in her life with poetry and poetry. Another teacher is the philosopher Feng Youlan. Zheng Min listened to Mr. Feng Youlan give a lecture on "Philosophy of Life". Mr. Feng summarized the spiritual world of man as the "four realms" from low to high: the natural realm, the utilitarian realm, the moral realm, and the heaven and earth realm. After Zheng Min listened to Mr. Feng Youlan's life philosophy class at the Southwest United University, she realized: "Only by confusing yourself with nature, participating in each other, breaking the boundaries between things and me, talking with nature, and absorbing its breadth and vitality, that is, the realm of heaven and earth as I understand it, can it be possible to cross the most critical obstacle of gain and loss, and run to the end with a relaxed mood." Zheng Min in his later years once said: "Writing poetry should make people feel that they have suddenly entered another world, and if I am still in this world, I don't have to write." After entering the new century, she published "The Last Birth" in the "Poetry Journal", which is a deep and calm reflection of an old poet in his eighties before the arrival of the great limit:
A long time, a long time ago
It is these powerful hands
Sent me into my mother's lake
Now it's these hands that guide me—
A fragile body goes
The final birth
……
A tiny particle again
Floating in the body of the Mother of the Universe
I'm not gone.
From a distant galaxy
I'm listening to humanity...
In the face of death, the end of life that everyone has to reach, the poet has no fear, no pessimism, and no desire to be happy in time, but faces it calmly as a philosopher. She regarded the birth of her physical life as the first birth, and the imminent death as a small particle returning to the body of the Mother of the Universe, and thus the "final birth." This kind of insight into the enlightenment after birth and death, this great love for the universe and for life, shows that the poet's ideological realm in his later years has reached the peak of his life.
It should be said that from the day she stepped on the poetry scene, Zheng Min showed that she was different from her contemporaries. Take Chen Jingrong, a female poet who also belongs to the Jiuye Poetry School, for example, Chen Jingrong's poems are the songs of melancholy maidens, and Zheng Min is a prayer for the quiet night. Taking Mu Dan and Du Yunxie, who are also poets of the Southwest United University, as an example, Zheng Min's poems do not have the tenacity of "Grass Shoe Soldiers" who fought in Burma, nor the smoke and dust on the "Yunnan Burma Highway", nor the "charm of the forest" floating on the white bone pile of Savage Mountain. But Zheng Min has his own thing, that is, philosophical contemplation and humanistic temperament. In Zheng Min's own words, it is to take philosophy as the foundation of poetry and humanistic feelings as the longitude and latitude of poetry, which is Zheng Min's true biography from Feng Zhi, and it is also the entry point for understanding Zheng Min's poetry.
If it is said that "taking philosophy as the foundation of poetry and taking humanistic feelings as the longitude and latitude of poetry" marks the spiritual realm and ideological height of Zheng Min's poetry, then "making music become sculpted and flowing become crystallized" represents the unique artistic pursuit and artistic style of Zheng Min's poetry. Zheng Min's poetry has a Rilke-like, deep, dignified sculptural beauty. From time to time, Zheng Min's poems have smooth sculptural textured imagery. In her earlier representative poem "Golden Rice Bunch", she distilled a classic image in the history of modern poetry - "Golden Rice Bunch". The poet imagines the bouquet of rice standing in the field after autumn as a statue of a "tired mother" with a "wrinkled beautiful face", and naturally associates the golden bouquet with the broad maternal love. In turn, the poet used the "full moon of the harvest day" to paint the statue with brilliance, and used the "distant mountain" in the twilight to add a background to the statue, and what was always accompanied by the statue was "silence", and it was in silence, in the retrospection of history, that people felt the breadth and depth of maternal love. Among contemporary female poets, Zheng Min broke through the level that women's writing was only concerned with dissolving male power, lifting sexual confinement, and freely exerting the charm of women's youth, and reached a new height in meditation and contemplation.
Zheng Min is not only an important poet in the history of modern Chinese poetry, but also an important poetry theorist, which is especially rare among modern female poets. For Zheng Min, the study of poetry theory and Western literary theory is not only the professional requirement of college teachers, but also the need of her life. In Zheng Min's view, the creation of poetry and the exploration of theory are two sides of the same coin. Her poetry has a strong philosophical background, and her papers are different from ordinary philosophical works, with obvious poetic colors. Zheng Min's poetry theory works, focusing on inner contemplation, condense her rich poetry creation practice, run through the philosophical thinking of the universe, nature and people, and strive to intertwine the profound accumulation of national culture with the modern consciousness of Western poetry, which is an important achievement in the construction of New Chinese Poetry Theory. Zheng Min's poetic thought is very rich, and in terms of the points that have the greatest influence on the domestic poetry theory community, they mainly include the excavation of the unconscious field of poetry creation, the study of the internal structure of poetry, the concern for Derrida deconstructionism and the discussion of the problem of poetic language, and the thinking that new poetry should inherit the excellent tradition of ancient poetry. As a veteran poet with more than 70 years of creative experience, as a scholar with a full understanding of Chinese and Western philosophy and literary theory, zheng min's propositions have been carefully considered by her. She sincerely laments the rupture of the excellent tradition of classical poetry, and her dissatisfaction and criticism of the current state of new poetry actually reflect her deep feelings for New Chinese poetry and the deep longing for life. From receiving Feng Zhi's enlightenment and modernism to begin writing new poems, to returning to the classical poetic tradition through postmodernism, this can give people enough inspiration in itself with the trajectory of poetry and poetry theory drawn by the cultural trend of the 20th century.
Mr. Zheng Min is my elder, and in terms of age, she is only two years younger than my mother. Soon after I smashed the Gang of Four, I got to know Mr. Zheng Min. I was impressed by her kindness, sensitivity and profound knowledge. Since then, due to my working relationship, I have taken graduate students to visit Mr. Zheng Min many times. Listening to her talk about poetry, telling her life experience, after talking about the right topic, she will talk to us about poetry, about society, about education, about the global ecological environment, no wonder her family called her "worried about the country, worried about the people, worried about the earth". Zheng Min, a poet with extraordinary vitality, creates faith as bright as the sun, let the years pass, the world changes, her ageless poetic heart will always beat in line with the times, leaving us with good expectations.
Now this hundred-year-old poet Xian has passed away, but the miracle of her life, the creative passion she still maintained in her old age, and the glorious poems and poems she left for us will forever be engraved in the history of contemporary Chinese poetry and will always be engraved in my heart.
From left: Chen Jingrong, Du Yunxie, Cao Xinzhi, Zheng Min, Yuan Kejia, Tang Qi
From left: Liu Fuchun, Zheng Min, Sun Yushi, Xie Mian, Yuan Xiaomin
Attached: Ten poems by Zheng Min
Golden rice bunches
Golden rice bunches stood
In the fields of autumn that have been cut,
I think of countless tired mothers,
On the road at dusk I saw that beautiful wrinkled face,
The full moon of harvest day is here
On the top of the towering trees,
In the twilight, the mountains are far away
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 the foot,
And you, standing there,
Will become a human thought.
The Carver's Song
Spring, summer, autumn, winter
I covered my ears and covered my eyes
Don't know the leaping bird, and its song,
And the flowers and trees and the breeze in between
My stone whispered to me: tranquility, tranquility, tranquility
I hammered, chiseled, touched, grinded
In the haze of dawn
In the shadow of dusk
I silently stared at the white foot of the light and shadow game on the stone
Contemplating the subtle undulations of the stone lines
So one day, I used my wisdom to see
A beautiful statue of her sleeping,
Close her eyes and wait for a pair of humble hands
A devout heart to open the blockade of marble
Greet her from the cold hidden world
To the presence of you under the sun
How many times have I covered my ears and covered my eyes
For my stone is saying to me: tranquility, tranquility
When I started working, I retreated into a lonely world
There are no flowers that will wither, there is no singing that stops
When I finish my work, I am back among you
Here My statue will grow in your lives
This is not abandonment,
is a temporary separation
Who awakens life from inanimateness
The intimacy and silence he needed
Make him forget his own life for a moment
The river that swirled and boiled in a limited time
I have not abandoned you, if there were
Just because I want to stay between you forever.
Lotus
——Guan Zhang Daqian'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 "birth" in your hands, this serious burden.
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.
Secrets
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.
Legged
Deep Forest pulled the path out of her chest
The path leads, oh - here the ancient trees around the pond, the pool reflects
With a shadow, a smile on his face—
Like an immovable flower gives a thousand moving lives
Looking there, green emerges from the young leaves
It dissolves into the pale green daylight and soaks the feet
You melt into the cold and tranquility of the woods, in the haze
Oh, girl, you are happily waiting for the other half of yourself
He came, a squirrel jumped over the fallen leaves,
He was whistling, and the two birds were whispering
Finally tiredness blew away the light fog in the forest
You dream of turning into a squirrel and turning into a tall tree
I dreamed of grass and turned into a waterhole
Your pale feet sleep in the water
Portrait of a young girl from Renoir
Those who pursue you, from those half-drooping eyes, go into your depths,
Although they are open, they do not 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 blocking 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, how a soul can first close itself 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.
Longing: A male lion
There was a wide open mouth in my body
It resembles a roaring male lion
It rushed to the bridgehead of the river
Watch the turbulence under the bridge
The ship that glides quietly across the bridge hole
It hears the times roaring
It was as if the elephants in the forest were roaring
It looked back at me
Walked back into the cage of my body
The golden retriever of the lion resembled daylight
The elephant's roar was like a drum
Flowering vitality returned to my body
The lion took me to the bridgehead
There, I went on a date
Voices of the heart
On this midsummer night
It was like the white crane that suddenly floated in
Use its wings from a deep sleep
Fan comes with a rich aroma of white jade hairpins
Calling names from memory
Draw out mysterious symbols
It flew and circled in my sky
Staying, he refused to leave
Rich and white, from ancient times
Transformed into a white crane, it occupied my sky
I can't understand its symbols, can't understand
Why does it live so long, so beautifully
So white, it despises death
One day it will turn into a star in the night sky
It's still full of music that people can't hear
Spinning wildly, flying towards me
You, the voice in my heart is calling
The eternal universe, the endless depths of darkness
Store your, mine, our voices
To the God of Poetry
Suddenly I heard the call
There is no time to look for pen and ink
It's like a tidal wave
Just go in silence
Aoyama cannot be recovered
Qiu Shui only swelled on its own
I followed with my eyes
The echo of the sky in an instant
Space floats all the time
You and I are hard to catch track of
Water only stays when it flows
Clouds are only intentional when they change
I hear your breath
The wind was blowing news from the woods