How far away is contemporary poetry from the general public?

Text/Wang Qingsong (poet)

Gong Xuemin (left) and Wang Qingsong

Poetry creation has gone from the heyday of the early 1980s to today's rapid decline, from the reading and writing of poetry by the whole people to the current niche hobby, the road to poetry has become narrower and narrower, and it has to cause the poetry community to reflect. What the hell have we lost? Why is our poetry getting farther and farther away from the masses? Why don't we have such a good poem as Shu Ting's "To the Oak Tree" for readers to remember and recite? In the article "The Ideals and Troubles of a Poetry Editor-in-Chief", Gong Xuemin of the "Stars" poetry journal judged the current situation of poetry and believed that the writing of new poetry had entered a bottleneck period. Most of the poetry creations are still exploring, still on the way to the peak. Since we have not yet reached the peak, our creation must try new methods in writing as much as possible, including language and subject matter, and find the possibility of making our poetry go to a higher level.

Gong Xuemin said that the current world is in a "major change that has not occurred in a hundred years", and most poets use the concept of new poetry when they are first born to create, and they constantly repeat themselves in writing, and they stagnate. There are also some contradictions within the poets, the old poets learn the tradition, the young poets learn the West, you don't understand me, I am not willing to try to understand you, these are not good inheritance and integration development, let alone the way out of Chinese poetry.

In education, the section involving poetry is also very lagging behind, and the poems selected in textbooks are still stuck in decades ago. After Shu Ting in the early 1980s, Chinese new poetry has been developed for 40 years, and the general public is unaware of this, resulting in the current poetry being high and low. I have a few feelings about the current phenomenon of poetry existing or waiting to jump out of the "black under the lights":

First, emotion is the soul of poetry. Now poetry is mostly pursued in language, skill, and philosophy, and lacks emotion, making people not beat hard when they read. Even if it is a love poem, writing "missing", does not make people lose sleep, writes "sadness", does not shed tears after reading, writes "joy", and does not touch people's nerves and excitement.

Second, the excessive pursuit of innovation. Exploration is necessary, but poetry cannot be written with a certain literary foundation that cannot be read by literary lovers. Many poets seek novelty, repeatedly dismantle the words and phrases, imagine the creek as the Pacific Ocean, and plant the flowers on the ground in the sky, which is too tossed.

Third, live faithfully. Poetry that really comes from life is good poetry. Now many poems float in the clouds, so that you can't see and touch, in the clouds and fog, saying that he writes the sky, but also in the writing of the ground, writing people is like writing birds, neither intention, nor feeling, reading, nothing.

Fourth, good poetry should resonate with the public. Now the poet, as if into a band of bands, you play your gong, I knock on my mole, there is no consensus. The so-called poetic authority is nothing more than possessing the right to speak, and there are very few people who really make poets admire and whose works show their prestige. This year, it should be said that there was no introduction of poems that made the public like. Only by recognizing this can we break through!