Jiang Hongwei: "Language Newspaper", a newspaper that has influenced my life

Photograph: Li Lei

Jiang Hongwei, born in 1966, is a native of Hailun County, Heilongjiang. Director of the Chinese Poetry Society, poet, poetry historian, literary history researcher, director of China's first private poetry memorial hall - the 1980s Poetry Memorial Hall. At present, he is working in the Organization Department of the Huzhong District Committee of Daxinganling District, Heilongjiang Province. He has published more than 200 articles on the historiography of novels and poetry in the 1980s in newspapers and periodicals such as Harvest, Flower City, and Beijing Literature, and published three books.

The Language Newspaper, a newspaper that has influenced me all my life

Jiang Hongwei

In the Poetry Memorial Hall of the 1980s, which I personally founded, a special counter was set up to display a series of precious materials related to the language newspaper: there was the inaugural issue of the "Language Newspaper"; there were more than 20 volumes of the bound edition of the "Language Newspaper" from 1981 to 1990; there was the "Literature of Middle School Students" poetry extra large published in 1987; there was the former "Language Newspaper" deputy editor-in-chief Zhang Chunlin and the editor-in-chief Wang Yuhong, as well as an unsigned editor-in-chief wrote me in 1986; there was a lead-printed "Middle School Students' Literature" to subscribe to the leaflet. There are call for papers; there are lead and mimeographed rejection letters; there are selected poems for middle school students "Our Age" compiled by the language newspaper in 1985, and "Selected Poems of Middle School Students" in 1986.

Why am I so precious to this information? Because in my mind, they have to do with a newspaper, with my adolescence, with my ideals, with my destiny.

This newspaper related to my life is the Shanxi "Language Newspaper" that has influenced my life.

The Language Newspaper led me to the door of poetry

I first came into contact with The Language Newspaper in 1981, when I was 15 years old and in the second grade of junior high school. One day I went to the school mailroom to drink water during recess exercises, and in the pile of newspapers delivered by the postman, I found a sixteen-open, folding newspaper called "Language Newspaper". Curious, I read the newspaper in the mailroom. As a result, I was so captivated by the poetry and essays published in this newspaper that I almost forgot to go back to class. So I got to know the Language Newspaper and started reading it in the library. Because it is a weekly newspaper, and because the Huzhong District of Daxing'anling, where I live, is remote, the newspaper comes very slowly, and the mood of waiting for the newspaper is also anxious. But every time I saw this newspaper in the library, it was a joy. In the process of reading the newspaper, I was subtly influenced by the various styles and genres of poetry published in the newspaper, just like a virus in the computer, because reading the "Language Newspaper", many of my homework was completely dead, and all my interests were attracted by poetry. Since then, whether in class or after school, my homework book is no longer full of homework, but a series of campus poems.

In this way, the "Language Newspaper" became a newspaper that influenced my life. Under the influence of "Language Newspaper", at the age of 15, I began my "revolutionary" career in poetry prematurely, and published more than 70 poems in more than 40 newspapers and periodicals across the country, such as "Children's Literature", "Juvenile Literature and Art", "Poetry Newspaper", "Poetry God", "Spring Shoot Newspaper" and so on. At the same time, because I organized the Spring Bud Poetry Club in the school in 1983 and founded the "Secondary School Students Campus Poetry Newspaper" at my own expense after graduating from high school in 1986, I became a "professional revolutionary" who had a lot of influence in the poetry circle of middle school students.

"Middle School Student Literature" gave me great encouragement

Perhaps because of my influence on the poetry scene on the campus of middle school students, on the eve of my graduation from high school in 1985, when the language newspaper was preparing to start "Literature for Middle School Students", I received a leaflet from the editorial department. So, while submitting articles to the journal and promoting it to the poetry club students, I was very busy. Unfortunately, the submission has been returned several times, more than 20 years have passed, the lead-printed and mimeographed rejection letter I still cherish, it is estimated that these two rejection letters in the country may have become "orphan products", right? Although, not publishing poetry in Middle School Literature was my biggest regret in middle school. However, in the 1986 book "Selected Poems of Middle School Students" jointly published by the editorial board of "Middle School Student Literature" and the Writers Publishing House and the magazine "Middle School Students" more than 20 years later, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had selected three poems in the book! What makes me particularly happy is that in the full set of "Literature for Secondary School Students" journal sent to me by Ren Yanjun, the poetry editor of "Middle School Students Literature" and the current editor-in-chief of the language newspaper, I unexpectedly found that zhao Jiangong, the editor-in-chief of the year, published an article in the journal published in 1988, in which an objective evaluation of my poetry career in middle school was made: "As we all know, the first thing that caused adults to look at me and put their own unique logos on the literary corridor in the new period was the middle school students' campus poetry. Since 1985, middle school student Jiang Hongwei took the lead in raising the banner of 'campus poetry for middle school students', followed by the birth of the country's first "Campus Poetry Newspaper for Middle School Students" in Heilongjiang in 1986. At the end of the same year, the 'Top Ten Campus Poets of Middle School Students' were selected nationwide. As a result, the school of poetry on campus of middle school students was formed magnificently. ”

Writing "In Search of the Missing In the History of Poetry"

In the 1980s, tens of millions of middle school poetry lovers across the country were deeply influenced by the "Language Newspaper", which is known as the "First Chinese Language Newspaper" and the "Middle School Student Literature", which is known as the "First Issue of Secondary School Student Literature", and set off a huge and far-reaching campus poetry movement for middle school students inside and outside the campus. Holding high the bright red banner of middle school students' campus poetry, these young pioneers of China's contemporary poetry circles created poems, organized clubs, founded newspapers and periodicals, and printed and distributed poetry collections, writing a brilliant and brilliant chapter in the history of Contemporary Chinese poetry, forming a unique phenomenon of the campus poetry movement of middle school students in the 1980s.

This rare school poetry movement of the 1980s was both unprecedented and unprecedented. However, because there was no strong right to speak at that time, it was not recognized by theoretical authorities, and it did not attract enough attention from the poetry community, consciously or unconsciously, the once vigorous campus poetry movement of middle school students in the 1980s was forgotten by the history of poetry, and the group of middle school students who had a great influence on campus and beyond became missing people in the history of poetry.

Perhaps because I advocated the campus poetry of middle school students more than 20 years ago, I have always had a deep affection for the campus poetry movement of middle school students that year. Therefore, in order to restore this true history, open this secret archive, restore this historical truth, and remember this glorious time, in 2006, to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the "Secondary School Students Campus Poetry Newspaper" founded by me and other opportunities, I undertook this very arduous task of excavating, sorting out and researching the historical materials of the campus poetry movement of middle school students in the 1980s. This is a huge project to rescue the history of poetry, in more than a year, huge workload, overloaded labor, I overcame all kinds of difficulties that outsiders can not imagine, and got the help of many poetry brothers and sisters. On June 12, 2006, in order to write this manuscript, I led my nine-year-old daughter Jiang Yuqing (Le Le), with a thousand yuan on her body, from Huzhong District in the Daxinganling area, and began a 40-day trip to Harbin, Beijing, Huangshan, Hangzhou, Shanghai, Suzhou, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen to find the missing people in the history of poetry, and found Ge Hongbing, Qiu Huadong, Hong Zhan, Ma Xiaoxiao, and Zhou Seser, the authors and readers of the "Middle School Students Campus Poetry Newspaper" more than 20 years ago Zhang Huaxia and more than 100 school poet brothers and sisters in the 1980s. Because the incident is extremely legendary and newsworthy, it has caused great shocks in the literary world and society, and the domestic influential "New Weekly", "Southern Metropolis Daily" and Shenzhen "Jing Bao" have all published interview articles with reporters.

In the course of writing this book, in the summer of 2006, through the matchmaking of Shanxi poet Wang Shixun, I had a phone call with Ren Yanjun's eldest brother, who had been friends for many years. When I talked to him about my idea of writing a history of poetry on campus for middle school students, he was very happy, expressed his full support for me, and sent me a very precious set of bound copies of "Literature for Middle School Students", which provided me with rich content for writing the history of poetry. At the same time, he also spent time in his busy work to write a long preface to my manuscript.

After more than a year of intense preparation, in April 2008, China's first monograph on the history of campus poetry, "Searching for Missing Persons in the History of Poetry: A Memorandum of the Campus Poetry Movement in the 1980s", was finally published! After the book was published, it attracted widespread attention in the literary circles and the media in just one month. On 16 April, the Xinhua News Agency of The Chinese People's Government issued a special telegram to major media across the country entitled "Publication of the First Monograph on the History of Poetry on Chinese Campuses."; Dozens of newspapers and periodicals, including People's Daily, Guangming Daily, Literature Daily, China News and Publication Daily, Southern Metropolis Daily, Heilongjiang Daily, and Shenzhen Special Economic Zone Daily, published book news and book review articles, causing considerable repercussions in the literary circles.

In the summer of 2008, through the publication of "In Search of the Missing Person in the History of Poetry", "Dongfeng", at the same time, coinciding with the 30th anniversary of the celebration of the Language Newspaper, through the contact information I provided for the campus poets of the middle school students in the 1980s, Ren Yanjun, who was the deputy editor-in-chief of the newspaper at the time, planned and organized a gathering with the theme of "Long Live Youth" in Taiyuan, Shanxi. I remember that it was the end of October, and I and More than 20 brothers and sisters from North and South of Heaven, including Jiang Xiaoyu, Ye Ning, Beibei, Jichun, Yisha, Wu Maosheng, Ta Ta, Lu Qiaomei, Zuo Chunhe, Zhao Liqun, Zhao Xichen, Hei Junma, Wang Shixun, Li Zuoming, Lao Jun, Zhang Luqun, Duan Hua, An Wulin, Sun Weiwei, Wei Min, He Jie, Wang Lang, and more than twenty other brothers and sisters rushed from the north and south of the world to Taiyuan to gather, and spent one unforgettable and beautiful day after another. Since then, these poetry brothers and sisters have gathered in Beijing, Jiangsu Rugao and other places to spend a good poetry time together and talk about beautiful poetry and friendship. And all this should be attributed to the "Language Newspaper".

This Taiyuan gathering had a very important impact on me, inspiring me to "go hand in hand" in the study of poetry history in the 1980s and the study and writing of literary history in the 1980s, and achieved a series of fruitful results, successively publishing "Genealogy of College Students' Poetry" and "Poetry Era" (upper and lower volumes), filling the gap in the field of contemporary Chinese poetry history research. He has published more than 200 articles on the historiography of novels and poetry in the 1980s in nearly 100 literary newspapers and periodicals such as Harvest, Flower City, and Beijing Literature, and has written 8 3 million words of historical manuscripts of literature and poetry in the 1980s, such as "The Chronicle of Haizi", "Annals of Jia Dashan Literature", "Annals of Tiening Literature", "Annals of Lu Yao Literature", "Annals of Zhou Keqin", "Chronicles of Zhang Xianliang", "Annals of Zhang Jie Literature", "Annals of Chen Zhongzhong Literature", "Annals of Chen Zhongzhong Literature", "Annals of Chen Zhongzhong Literature". Chi Zijian Literary Chronology", "Li Cunbao Literary Chronology".

When many friends congratulated me on my success, I asked myself countless times in my heart: If I hadn't seen the "Language Newspaper" that influenced my life forty years ago, would I have achieved today?

Completed on October 8, 2020

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Source: Language Newspaper 2020-11-03

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