"You were my death:/ You, I can hold, / When everything is lost from me."
30 years ago, it was these three lines of poetry that made the poet Wang Jiaxin remember the great poet Paul Celan and was deeply attracted to him. "The first time I read Celan was by chance, I borrowed an English version of Celan's selected poems from the Academy of Social Sciences, and I was caught as soon as I read it." He said, "There are too many poems about death written in ancient and modern Chinese and foreign literature, and I have never seen anyone write death like Celan, and he and his death have established a very deep relationship between me and you." Although the poem has only three lines, behind it is celan's life, and it also contains the history of the suffering Jewish people. On April 20 this year, the 51st anniversary of the death of German-speaking poet Paul Celan, Guangxi Normal University Press, which published "The Radiance of Ashes: Selected Poems of Paul Celan", invited the translators of the book, Wang Jiaxin, the famous poet Duoduo, Lan Lan and others to visit the Beijing Codeword Bookstore to share their reading and research experiences of Paul Celan and deeply interpret the significance of Celan's poetry to contemporary Chinese poetry and our times.
For 30 years, Wang Jiaxin carried "such a Celan" into his life, not only reading and translating, but also living together, silent together, and sometimes even having to "live for him". Celan became some kind of inseparable "presence" in life, and he and such translators also established a relationship of "I and you" in the deepest sense. So looking back today, Celan's short poem "You Were" has also become a portrayal of his translation and grasp of Celan over the years.
The famous poet Duoduo said to the young audience: "This is your best textbook." He believes that for Celan's poetry, it is important to read rather than analyze, and in repeated reading, he can feel the greatness of Celan and establish his own perception of Celan's poetry, which takes time. Celan's poetry is not a simple record of Celan's life, and criticism cannot replace creativity. Duo Duo said at the scene that his reading of Celan contains three stages: first, he just began to read Celan 30 years ago, which was the most stimulating stage; many years later, Duo Duo found blank, paused, silent, and unspoken things in Celan's poetry, which is Celan's experience of suffering after experiencing great grief, which cannot be said or exhausted. In Celan's poetry, mystery is the expression of his creativity, the silence and detour in poetry are the most important premises for the existence of Celan's poetry, celan surpasses everyone in this regard; the third stage is to dodo from last year to this year's sudden realization, Celan's seemingly careless poem, but always can bring him a deep shock, as if another world is suddenly opened, Duoduo casually read two sentences: "Sail to the earth with the mast of song, the wreckage of heaven."
For the poet Lanlan, reading Celan is a painful experience. Celan's parents died in the concentration camp, and the pain and despair he endured in his soul can only be felt through his poetry, and good poetry always awakens the reader's imagination and achieves the kind of feeling and identification that the poet hopes you can achieve. With the enrichment of life experience, reading Celan's poetry again will also have new feelings. She said.
Most of Celan's poetry, as Wang Jiaxin points out, is carried out within the framework of "me and you." This is also rare in the history of poetry. Celan believes that poetry is a kind of "letter in a bottle", and he has to face the unknowable and unenlightened other, not only from the experience of human nature, but also from the European philosophical and poetic tradition, but in Celan it is more from the thorough criticism and reflection of historical experience to carry out the dialogue of "I and you".
China Education News, May 8, 2021, 4th edition
Author: Tinee