Photo by Li Hao
Liu Xiangdong, the resident vice president of the Chinese Poetry Society and the editor-in-chief of the Selected Poetry Journal, is the author of 27 poems, including "Mother's Lamp", "Falling Leaves and Birds", "Silent Collection", "Poetry and Thought", and "Reading Poems".
Yes, this is poetry (reading poetry miscellaneous)
Liu Xiangdong
The experience of occult meaning
Speaking of the American poet Robert Pan Warren, the most famous poem is "The Songbird of the Vicissitudes of the World":
It was just a bird chirping at night, and I couldn't recognize what kind of bird it was.
When I came back from the spring to get water, I walked past a pasture full of stones,
I stood so quietly that the sky above my head was as quiet as the sky in the bucket.
How many years have passed, how many places and how many faces have been indifferent, and some people have passed away,
And I stood in the distance, the night so quiet, I was finally sure
What I miss most is not the things that will eventually disappear, but the tranquility of birdsong.
(Translated by Zhao Yiheng)
It's a poem that doesn't seem complicated, but it's very rich inside. Warren, perhaps influenced by the metaphysical poets and somewhat related to Torther Eliot and the New Critics, expresses in this poem many occult experiences, which, if one were to give, could be called "remembrance of existence." Birdsong is an instantaneous thing; and the sky and the stones, the pastures, these are eternal things; man is a special experiencer in the middle, he also belongs to "those things that will eventually disappear", but he does not pay attention to and remember the eternal things that are not enough, because he knows clearly that it is futile, and instead of admiring those, it is better to carefully taste life, to feel the mysterious state of "I am" in life.
This is also very subtle similar to the kind of Zen in wang wei's ancient chinese poetry, which is ethereal and full of philosophical ideas in Wang Wei's "Birdsong", which is very similar to it: "People are idle and the osmanthus flowers fall, and the night is quiet in the spring mountains and skies." The moonrise frightens the mountain birds, and when the song is in the spring stream. It's just that there's an ethereality that is similar to "the realm of no-self," and Warren's poem is more of a "my presence."
Related to the ideological content and depth of consciousness that the late Symbolist poets liked, this "Songbird of the Vicissitudes of the World" has some deliberate nudity of meaning. The author has carefully identified certain iconic images: "water by the spring", "pasture full of stones", "sky above the head", "sky in a bucket", "how many years"... These are all to illustrate time, and the elements of time are having an unavoidable revelation and impact on human life and the experience of existence. To sum up its meaning with the words "I experience, therefore I am" may be justified.
"Old Photographs of the Future" is also a unique poem:
The center of attention—a childish face
Years ago (presumably) white and red —
It's now faded; only a little bit is left in the photo
Gray and white, not much expression appeared.
The center of attention, in the white swaddling,
It was the woman's treasure; she was beautiful and young,
With a look of surprise on his face, he snuggled
The mysterious miracle that burst out.
Later in the place, that majestic figure
Hazy emerged, with a twinkle of achievement and pride on his face.
Wearing a black coat and a top hat draped over his chest, he couldn't wait
To assure you that the world is at peace – to put aside your troubles.
The photos have faded badly. Isn't that reasonable?
By the age of seventy-five everything looked old,
And this photo is exactly that age.
The couple, of course, was no longer alive.
They took the rest of their love and lay side by side
Under the green grass, or snow; that baby, after many years, stood there;
The old scene was blurred, and he was full of guilt
Yu Nameless's promise was not fulfilled, and the decadence was inexplicable.
(Translated by Peng Jingxi and Xia Yansheng)
The poem has a strong narrative, but it is not a linear flat and straight narrative, and its narrative time is quite exquisite here. It adopts the method of staggering and twisting the three narratives of flashbacks, pre-narratives, and present tense narratives, so that the time period of the overall narrative not only has a length, but also has depth and amplitude; it becomes a naming of survival and life situations that have both the weight of practical experience and strong symbolic significance.
The so-called "old photos of the future" is one of the basis of the poet's narrative. "Pre-narrative" reminds you in tense, "I looked ahead to the future." The poem", "The baby, after many years, stands there" in memory of his parents, suggests that although there are many accidents in life, the only necessary thing is the decay and eventual death of human life. Man is the only creature in the world who can predict that he has a "time realm".
Curiously, however, the poet's "pre-narrative" is confused with flashbacks, and the content of "pre-narrative" has been confirmed by time. In this way, the speaker's time base point becomes erratic, and time here is not linear physical time, but becomes the time experienced by the subject; the poet intersperses three ambiguous tense narratives, giving the work a specific and authentic specificity in a wide range of suggestive functions. The picture shows a family of three, the young father, with a "majestic figure" and "a twinkle in his face with accomplishment and pride." / Wearing a black coat and a top hat draped over his chest, he can't wait / To assure you that the world is at peace – put your troubles behind. The mother, "beautiful and young/blessed with a look of astonishment," snuggled up to her little baby—"the mysterious miracle that burst forth." The "blessed astonishment" and "mysterious miracle" here are worded to mimic the mysterious miracle of Mary's blessed conception of the Holy Spirit and the birth of Jesus in the New Testament. The imagery of the parents is used here, with a slight ironic nature. The competitive ideas and Protestant ethics of the early free societies have gradually lost their vitality, and today, the world is still not "peaceful", new "troubles" are rolling in, and their "descendants" are "full of guilt and wounded / nameless promises have not been fulfilled, and the decadence is inexplicable."
What exactly is "that center of attention"? It refers to the decay of human life and the absurd degeneration of human spiritual history. However, the poet does not despise to use abusive ways to say it, but instead interleaves the three narrative times, and conveys a faint nostalgia for life and survival and an inner sense of fatalism in calmness and restraint.
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Yes, this is poetry
executioner......
Eyes filled with despair.
The child pleads for mercy in the pit:
"Uncle,
Don't bury it too deeply,
Or Mom wouldn't find us. ”
(Translated by Wang Shouren)
"This is called poetry?"
"Like a common saying..."
"You want to shed tears!"
I forget how many times I've faced a problem like the one above. Yes, this is poetry, it was the Soviet poet P. Boro Durin's The Executioner....
The poem is a historical fragment of the Second World War, short and concise, unpretentious, without a single superfluous word, but almost all levels of people can read it, the difference being that different people have different understandings. The first sentence, "The Executioner" plus an ellipsis, writes how many sins the German fascists have committed! The second sentence writes about the fate of the German fascists who were doomed to defeat in the war, and at the same time writes about the indomitable spirit of resistance of the Soviet Red Army and the people of the world. From the third sentence, it is not difficult for us to feel that the children's homes and campuses have been destroyed by the war. What makes people deafening is the last three sentences: "Uncle, / Don't bury it too deeply, / Or mother will not find us." The word "executioner" is the adult's name for fascism, and in the eyes of the child, they are "uncles", is it different from other young men who are familiar or unfamiliar? "Don't bury it too deeply", in the face of "buried alive" that even the child does not let go, it is like a game in the eyes of the child, and there is almost no fear. "Otherwise the mother will not find us", as readers, we will have this association: where is the child's mother? Has he been killed? I don't see the child's father, but what about the father? Maybe they have already died, maybe they are fighting bloody battles on the front line of artillery fire, maybe they have not returned home for many years, and the child no longer has the concept of "father"... The last word of the poem is "we", and it is obvious that the child being pushed into the pit is not one, which gives the reader a clear shot: a group of heavily armed German devils, with knives, guns and shovels, are pushing a group of young beings into a newly dug pit, and this shot is set in the shelling of the Second World War, the corpses are everywhere, and the ruins are everywhere...
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It's not just the inspiration of poetry
Winter Sun Light Day
The sun falls cool, no companion,
There is no blame for us after we have finished our work.
It fell, with no faith in its heart.
When it went, I heard the sound of the stream following it.
It brings its flute from far away.
(Translated by 桴夫)
"The sunset is infinitely better, just near dusk." The American poet Mervyn did not have this sentimentality, but let the things that took over bring us more moving light and music. The sun sets, the stream follows, and brings its flute from far away... This is not only inspired by poetry, but also, from a deeper perspective, it is also the presentation of the wisdom of life, the echo of life.
door
This place could be a door space
I'm standing here
Stand outside all the walls in the light
A shadow will appear here
Exists all day long
There is a door
Open where I stand now
Long after I left
There will be a knock at the door
Knock this air
And there is another life
The door will be open for me
(Translated by Wang Jianzhao)
This is a very metaphysical poem, touching on the eternal theme, but the poet has a unique ingenuity, choosing a specific object - "door" to carry thinking.
The peculiarity of the "door" is that it is both an import and an export, and it can be used as a symbol between the transformation of life and death.
Where I am now standing, a door will appear, in keeping with the principle that "being" is born out of nothingness. But what is intriguing is that at that time, the real me has become the past, that is, from "existence" to "nothingness".
Stepping through the gates of death, what's inside? This question was raised in ancient Greece, but so far there is no answer, because none of the people who went there have returned.
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The deepest experiences of life also come from the apocalypse
I got sick once when I was a kid
With hunger and trepidation. I peeled off my lips
A layer of crusty skin and lick both lips. Remember
Its taste, salty, cold.
And I always do and do and do and do.
In front of the steps I sat down to keep warm,
Trance my steps are like dancing
Following the tune of the rat catcher, he paced towards the river. Squat
Warm up the steps and shiver all over your body.
Amu stood and summoned frequently, as if it were
Close at hand, but out of reach:
I approached her, and she stood seven steps away from me,
Calling me, I approached her, and she stood
Seven steps away from me and calling to me.
I feel chagrin,
Untying the neckline, I lay down,
Immediately, the horns roared in unison, shining brightly
Pounding my eyelids, the horses galloping, Amu
Fly above the road and summon me
Fly away...
And now I dream
A hospital, cold and white under an apple tree,
And the white sheets under my jaw,
And the white doctor looked down at me,
And the white nurse stood at my feet,
Swing its wings. And the Yi are still standing.
And then Amu came in and called out to me—
And then it flew away...
(Translated by Chen Ligui)
The Russian poet Arseny Tarkovsky's "I Got Sick Once When I Was a Child" is a touching poem.
All I can say is that such poems come from the deepest experience of life and from the apocalypse.
It also reminds me of being sick as a child, and with trepidation, I tore a layer of crusty skin from my lips and licked my lips, which I still remember to this day. It was such details that made the life experience of that early moment all come back. It is also in that panic, in the midst of sickness, that we need our mother so much.
I am over half a hundred years old, but I am still a child, a sick child, and in the longing for maternal love, I sometimes call my mother because of illness or drunkenness.
Fortunately, my mother, who is right next to me at the moment, is sewing me insoles that are enough for me to walk for the rest of my life.
Seeing only the phenomenon is not "life"
The Austrian poet Erich Friedrich's What is Life is ostensibly similar to the poems written by our beginner writers:
life
It was in my bathtub
Warm water
It's my lips
Stick to your open heart
It's a rage
Unfairness to the world
Just warm water
It's not enough
I'm going to play in the water
Just put your lips in your arms
I'm going to kiss it
Just anger at the grievances
We want to look for the root causes
and take action
Deal with it
This is life
(Translated by Ma Wentao)
What is life? It is the warm water in the bathtub, the open heart to the lips, and the anger of injustice. The poet chose three experiences to answer life. But only to write here, too single, too direct, poetry seems shallow. How about listing several metaphors or images? No, parallel progression can make the psalms superficial and cumbersome. Fulitt's pen turns sharply, adding a layer of "denial" to the "affirmation" with "not enough": still having to play in the water, kiss in the arms and find the source of anger. Just like acupuncture, after the needle is inserted, it is "twisted", which plays a role in progressing, deepening and strengthening, and makes the poetry swell.
Only when we see that the phenomenon is not yet "life", we must also find the root cause of the phenomenon, take action, and deal with it, which is called a complete life.
With a positive life experience and attitude, the poet explained the meaning of life to people.
Source: Petrel Magazine
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