Zheng Xiaoqiong : Secular and Lonely Lantern | the headline poet of Poetry Monthly
Zheng Xiaoqiong
China Poetry Network
Zheng Xiaoqiong, born in June 1980 in Nanchong, Sichuan, went south to Guangdong in 2001 to work. His works have been published in People's Literature, Poetry Journal, Independence, Pistons, etc. Some works have been translated into German, English, French, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Nepalese and other languages and published abroad. He has published Chinese poetry collections "Women's Workers", "Rose Manor", "Jute Ridge", "Selected Poems of Zheng Xiaoqiong", "Purebred Plants", "Pedestrian Bridge", etc., the French poetry collection "Product Narrative", the English poetry collection "Pinholes Through the Stars", The Migrant Ecologies: Zheng Xi-aoqiong's Women Migrant Workers, the Vietnamese poetry collection "Women's Workers", the Indonesian poetry collection "Women's Workers", etc. His works have won various literary awards, and he has participated in international poetry festivals such as the Berlin Poetry Festival and the Rotterdam International Poetry Festival, and his poems have been composed into different forms of music and drama by foreign artists in the United States and Germany.
This issue of "Duxiu" launches Zheng Xiaoqiong's "Secular World and Lonely Lamp" group poem, Zheng Xiaoqiong entered the poetry world from migrant workers writing the fate of migrant workers and new industrial poems, and its text comes from the grassroots ordinary people at the forefront of reform and opening up who have personal feelings about the changes of the times, the changes in human nature, and the changes in emotions. As soon as it was published, it attracted the attention of poetry circles and academic circles at home and abroad, and the characteristics of this group of poems lie in her new stylistic turn, that is, the observation and discovery of history and the present, Chinese experience and extraterritorial existence, and her poetry gaze is locked in many emotional wanderings and contemplations, at the same time, in the form of poetry, she pursues the innovation of new grammatical poetry, which may be her tribute to the classics of traditional Chinese poetry. The new Gelug poem originated from Wen Yiduo's subversion and opposition to Hu Shi's vernacular poetry and Guo Moruo's lyric poetry, "dancing with shackles" is a difficult writing that the poet himself pursues to the extreme, Goethe once said: "Only in the limit can we show our skills, only the law can give us freedom." "This group of poems of Zheng Xiaoqiong is a rare masterpiece, whether it is poetry, poetry, poetry or poetry. Whether the emergence of Zheng Xiaoqiong's new set of grammatical poems is also a correction to the current oral poetry and pseudo-lyric poetry style, let us wait and see.
--Li Yun
Autumn night stars
The lonely stars of autumn nights have tiger-like markings
Keep a lost distance from the clouds, the days that follow
The river became smaller, and the sky was full of young leaves
The lamp is telling its own legend, the darkness outside the wall
In the mirror in the courtyard, there are traces of nostalgia for the past
Autumn fir trees reveal their thin figures
In the middle of the night lights, the fragrance of osmanthus trembles between the glasses
I was listening to the sound of the stars hitting the running water
The soul dissolves into starlight or dust, pure light
Flying like a bird of prey, a tiger carries snow across the sky
Birdsong against the current washes away the Milky Way in the night
The stream turns into stone, and the stars solidify in the water
Entering the silence of life, I gazed into the firmament
Look for yourself in the raucous crowd, when I am
After singing the ballad, the stars are extinguished
Wei Jin was far away
Elderberry sleepless autumn, the shadows overflowing
The lonely form, the echo of the clear stream
The moonlight was calling for a plush plant
The fragrance of chrysanthemums tightening the crown, backlit night birds
A slender knife, cutting through the lilies of the court
The chirping of crickets, the wind and tunes of the late Tang Dynasty
Thoughts from afar meet sentimental moonlit nights
Lonely words, waiting for a long promise
Autumn grass and trees record the old days, and the river rushes
The wind blew through the September paper windows, and the moonlight covered the bridge
In the blue night of the Han Dynasty, birds and people walked together
The trees with fallen leaves pierce the unconscious loneliness in the fog
The secret colors of summer fade away in ignorance
The beauty of the flocks is disappearing, the lights of the autumn night
Suitable for the remote Wei Jin, Fuqin or crane raising
Autumn day
Horseshoes froze in the sound of cicadas, running stones
Diagonally inserted into the flesh of the stream, the autumn wind was brewing
The tragedy of the leaves, it hoards summer rainwater
Time is my fictional old dynasty water urn and clay figurines
The rosy afternoon continues from a previous life to the present
The sound is slow in the world, drinking tea and other bright moons rise
Osmanthus flowers in the garden bloom slowly, and the fragrance crosses the entrance
Greetings or farewells to you, next to a plate of fennel beans
Drink the poplars and the sunset, and the waves give up the sunset
Thrush sings rectangular joy in the catalpa tree
The notes of silence come from the wild dogwoods between the valleys
The chrysanthemums draw out the twilight, and the past hangs in the fog
The west wind wrote the tiredness of the night on the waves
Frost gives the geese a nihilistic address, from north to south
Their wings carry the poetry and gaze of spring
Spring drizzle
The east wind vacates the hillside and plants plantains and roses
Outside the window in the spring drizzle, the girl with the umbrella at the head of the bridge
A bouquet of grass-like waist, a light lit up the twilight
Wet leaves and faces, Hibiscus remembers the age of rain
The planets hover overhead, and the night is long
Oh the wordless joy of the cherry blossoms, once upon a time
The new swallow mended the sky with a whisper, and the leaves turned green
Stretching the spring roof, thoughts are rolled over with inches of yin
The distance between the heart and the heart, the dawn of sorrow is full
In the lychee woods on the hill, you have a little lost
The pillow is full of gentle pouring, moonlight long ladder
Stretching to your sadness, the meteor swarm is falling
You write fictional spring colors in the mirror, he and you
Keep a perfect distance and wait for the separation to fall apart
Cumulonimbus clouds in the sky have sailed a long voyage
The Shape of Autumn Night
The soul drifted some lonely rain, and the frost froze
The silent arch bridge, you wait for strange stars
The mountains disappear from the tree tips at the top of the mountain, while autumn is
A road down the hill, trees falling leaves, rice in
Bowing my head, I wrote a letter to the catalpa tree in the middle of the night
The invisible birdsong in the twilight of the thorn bush
Captured by ferns and twilight, I'm still distinguishing
The booing of flowing water with the frangipani on the shore, meditating
Confusing nan trees and bamboo forests, the rain opens
The invisible ripples of autumn water, cramped cedar forests
In the autumn on both sides of the great river, silver daggers stabbed
Butterflies and roses, I describe the silence in poetry
Color, like the shape of light spilling out of the shadows
Eternal and abstract moonlight illuminates the lonely cat
Light claws stepped through the frost, and the real illusion in his eyes
water
The water had been exhausted in the well for a lifetime, and it was eager to see
In the sky outside the well, plant a lemon in the water
It follows the wind and clouds to wander, riding a donkey in the drizzle
On a clear day, horses and duckweeds are whipped
Spitting out the circle of faith, this survival instinct
It ate the reflection of the moon and the stars and drank it
The rotten smell of time, the moss and stones of the well walls
Fallen leaves with fireflies, drink it cooling body
A few orange-yellow skies, cuckoos passing by
Never tires of voice, this desire to survive
The wellhead locked its fantasy waves, from the reels
To the barrel, the well rope drowned the juice of silence
The well water spits out the sour color and residual temperature of the lemon
It breeds tongues and faces in the water
The echo of ancient softness, this will to survive
Gangnam Old Courtyard
The spring breeze ripples, the constellations sprout, and the stream babbles
Only the South Mountain lies leisurely in front of the door, and the wooden leaves in the mountains
Open, one bird chirps, one bird flies lightly
A bird is like a zen settled, and the shadow of indigo is cast
There was a clear face in the grass, the coolness of the fog
The broken silver of the moon fills the windows of April, the alley
High heels and cheongsam, clear and fragrant back
The scent of gardenia flowers fills the alley with a hint
The ancient old hall stretches out a blooming begonia
The winding path of the human world leads to the dark and bright stone steps
Its body is filled with miniature Gangnam, deep courtyard
Horse head wall, laid-back idyll, canal tax collector
The darkened pages leave someone on a journey in the Ming Dynasty
The sound came from the wind of the black tiles and the barking of dogs in the distance
Bluestone arch bridges of the river, silent night sailing boats
Secluded town
Pear blossoms of branches with bright moon, birds in the dark
The feathers shrink and the light rushes from the broken branches
Python-like sky, lyrical twilight
The floating clouds of nostalgia, the people who are in a hurry ascend
Looking far away, the earthly fleeting passers-by and shooting stars
The branches of the old century are full of apple blossoms and cherries
The rain drenched the ants-like middle-aged, and the years were shattered
The sound, the curved figure that wears out the doorway
All things are in vain, loosely eroded and broken earthly
The smell of sadness in the rain fills the reclusive town
Morning glory walks across the round arch bridge, the sunset in the apricot blossoms
Years shout my name in the mirror and the stream
The water flows from the east, and people age, but they are not tired
The enthusiasm and excitement of youth, listen, years
It is washing away the weakness and bitterness in our hearts
Feed the horses on a moonlit night
The silent well poured over the sky with the flawless moon
White horses probe from the plantain bushes outside the wall
The old pain was shining in the well
The confused horse is running towards you, its white mane
Cast in the shadow of the horse's head wall, it gazes at the sky
The stars are like a bright word, hammering the darkness
The sound of barrels sounded from the walls of the well, green plantains
Standing at the end of the tree, we are pure solitude
Like the night incense in the open, the summer sheds the sun
The silent horse presented an ancient silence in the darkness
Some inexplicable longings are in the midst of loss, like horses
Stand by the horse's head wall and plunge your head into the darkness
Like the moonlight uprooting walls, flowers, and wells
I hung the bucket into the well, and the sound calmed down
The broken moon condensed and formed in the barrel
color
People crossing the sea in the sunset light encounter sharks and dolphins
Flying, the blue twilight continues to spread around
The brown lion threw its roar to the floor, trembling
Climbing walls and windows, branches skimming the night
Scratching the indigo skin of the sky, a tiger
Walking past the green glass, its claws trembled
The pale blue sound flows in the fog, tone
Like waves grinding flat in a ripple, the elbow of time
Hit the trees of the day and see the bird-like heart
They beat joyfully and are thrushes or larks
The black-winged birds of prey in the bushes swallowed the moonlight
The mountain leaned over to listen to the weaver girl, turning purple
Red poppies stained with fragments of clouds, cobras
Tuna's quiet cheeks, the leopard's eyes
The sound of ice cracking, it tore through the night with its teeth
"When I finished singing that ballad, the stars were extinguished."
From Tianhe to Baiyun, the rhythm of life has changed because of the epidemic. In the past, on weekends, I would go to industrial parks, such as Dongguan, Huizhou, Foshan, Shenzhen and other places. During the epidemic period, I couldn't go out, so I wrote novels on weekends and took half a day to climb Baiyun Mountain. Walk along the trail and turn around in the mountains for three or four hours. A grass and a tree in the mountains, a stream and a stream, a cliff and a stone... In order to figure out the trees, flowers and plants of Baiyun Mountain, I used the "various" software to understand these plants, which can distinguish the names, habits, and values of the plants in the photos... And whether poets through the ages have written poems related to this plant. Over the course of a few months, I learned more and more about plants and memorized a lot of poems about plants. These flowers and plants, which are so simple on the road that no one pays attention to them, not only have beautiful names, but many poets have written poems for them. I became more and more interested and re-acquainted with the meaning of classical poetry, especially some poets I had never paid attention to before, who wrote poems for flowers and plants on the side of the road, if not deliberately searched, completely unaware of the existence of such a poet, and in the creation of new poems, it seems that little attention is paid to specific flowers, plants, landscapes. Walking in the Baiyun Mountains, facing the natural landscape, some sentences and thoughts suddenly came up, and I wrote them down on my mobile phone as I walked.
"When I finished singing that song, the stars were extinguished," is the sentence I wrote on my way from the Huang Po Cave Reservoir towards the zodiac statue. I walked along the Plum Blossom Valley to the Lingquan Spring, which is very small and the water is very clear, and the nearby villagers are carrying pots and buckets to receive the mountain spring water. The mountain road is lush with bamboo forests and deep valleys, leaving only a line of sky. I looked up at the sky, a white cloud like a tiger was drifting by, and I wrote on my phone "Tiger carrying snow across the sky." When I got home, I sorted out the sentences and put them in a folder. In order to remember the plants I knew in the mountains and the poems related to them, I would write down a small feeling.
Migrant poetry is set against the backdrop of modern industrialization, and more than a decade ago, I read some articles and books on the Industrial Revolution, including books on economics. At that time, I was assembling a plastic product in the workshop of the factory, and the products of that company were exported in large quantities, and there were many places for export, from rich countries to underdeveloped countries, and the price and quality were completely different. At that time, the workers were concerned about the unit price of the order, whether it was good or not, and which salary was higher. As for where they are exported, people never care. I often ask seemingly naïve questions as to why poor quality must be exported to poor countries, and good quality must be exported to rich countries. Later, I came across some articles by the economic historian Gregory Clarke, who mentioned a very interesting thing, "Before 1800, in all the societies that we can observe, per capita income would fluctuate, up and down, but there was no trend change. ...... Even by 1813, the material conditions of most people were no better than those of their ancestors on the African savannah." After the Industrial Revolution, the per capita income gap between the world's richest countries and the poorest countries in Africa is as much as 40 times, which was unimaginable before the Industrial Revolution. The most important industry in the industrial revolution is textiles, and when I stand in front of the zodiac statue, she is a pioneer in the history of China's textile industry, thinking of the industrial revolution, remembering the migrant poems I have written. During that time in the factory, I used the traditional Chinese poetry to write about the machines in the workshop, and the drawings, screws, turning knives, etc. of the workshop became the imagery in my poetry, and I looked for poetry among the industrial objects.
Walking in the Baiyun Mountains, in the process of understanding those plants, the ancients wrote poetry, everything can be included in poetry, how to put industrial terms into poetry in migrant poetry, how to turn the things created by human wisdom into images and traditions in poetry, and expand the literary and aesthetic traditions within migrant poetry. I began to think about how humans and machines, between humans and human beings themselves, coexisted, giving industrial terms an ancient poetry. Organically blending industrial terms with natural imagery creates a clever balance between industrial artifacts and poetic expressions. Industrial nouns are like a sharp "knife of language" that cuts through the iron tools of life, flashes the light of language, illuminates the dark places of the human spirit and heart, and dissects the loneliness, confusion, harm and creation of human beings facing industry. Starting from the re-understanding of nature, in my poetry, the relationship between human beings and machines, industry and nature is no longer the tension and indifference expressed in the past poetry, they coexist harmoniously, how to make poetry exude the rhythm of industrial machines, dense industrial images collide with each other, restrict each other, like industrial gears meshing, expressing the barbaric vitality of industrial words and the rhythm of industry itself.
One day, I talked to a friend who didn't write poetry about modern poetry, and he asked a very simple question, whether a poet who writes modern poetry will read his poems to children who are learning to speak, and I don't know how to answer him. He also said that why parents teach children who have just learned to speak are to teach them to recite ancient poems, and few people teach modern poetry, in fact, for children, whether it is ancient poetry or modern poetry, there is not much difference in their hearts. His question is very interesting, why, I have asked some poet friends, but they have not answered. We often say that China is a big country of poetry, and the word "poetry" comes from the Book of Rites, whether it is the "national style" developed from the folk song that records the daily labor life of the ancients, or the "Yale" developed from the tradition of "throwing enough songs to sing eight songs", or the "ode" developed from the large-scale sacrifices held in ancient times, or "the affairs of a country, which are the basis of one person, called the wind; the things of the world, the wind of the four directions, are called elegance... The Ode, the description of Mei Shengde, is also known for his success to the gods. "Modern poetry seems to be beginning to break with the Chinese poetic tradition. This very interesting question has been bothering me, and I want to do some exploration in this regard. In order to facilitate reading and memory, I wrote a batch of small poems of no more than one hundred and twenty words and less than ten lines. Before writing this batch of small poems, I read some books on Zen, Japanese haiku, Wei and Jin metaphysics, etc., trying to integrate the three into new poems, and wrote seventy or eighty short poems, which is a kind of exploration. For the exploration of new poetry, many colleagues have practiced hard, such as modern Zen poetry, within nine lines, eight lines, six sections, Han Hai, etc. have been explored, using Zen meditation to open up "classical" and "modern" seems to be a very good channel, abolished name, Zhou Mengdi, Love, Kong Fu and other previous generations of poets have certain achievements on this road, I wrote dozens of poems, temporarily stranded this exploration, I think the skill is too shallow. Ten years of factory life and seven or eight years of exchange experience in industrial areas, realism has left a deep imprint on my thinking, meditation lies in the cultivation of the mind, and my mind can not be quiet.
I kept turning around on the mountain path of Baiyun Mountain, from spring to summer to autumn, facing the different scenery of Baiyun Mountain, facing the green mountains, different shapes of stones, different kinds of trees, mountain streams, ponds, temples, tombs, cliffs, caves... Re-acquainting myself with classical Chinese poetry from the plants I knew, I began to write these poems. In the early years, I wrote a book with a strong narrative style, "Rose Manor", wrote eighty twenty-four lines of poetry, six verses and four lines of style. Later, a collection of sonnets of Pure White was published, with a structure of four lines and three stanzas. In the middle, I also wrote a lot of sonnets intermittently, my earliest sonnets in the form of Shakespearean, 4442, and later in the Form of 4433 in the Petrarch style, which were included in my poetry collection "Travel". The sonnets in The Journey are mainly about my feelings in a foreign country. Walking in the Baiyun Mountains, I wanted to write a group of poems against the backdrop of pastoral landscapes. In these poems, I still want to do some exploration in form, I use five lines and three verses, a total of fifteen lines, in these poems, I make more stringent requirements, trying to be the same length of each line.
In the past hundred years of Chinese new poetry, generations of poets have been exploring in various ways, from the new grammatical poems of musical beauty, painting beauty and architectural beauty proposed by Mr. Wen Yiduo at the beginning of the period, to the Nine Leaf School, obscure poetry, and oral poetry, everyone has made useful explorations of new poetry from different dimensions. I think the exploration of new poetry should focus on how to "find tradition in the midst of change." The history of Chinese poetry is a history of exploration that constantly alternates between retro and innovation, for example, in the Tang Dynasty, Chen Ziang and others put forward the idea of "retro in innovation, and innovation in retro" that gave birth to the peak of Tang poetry.
I named this group of poems "Secular and Lonely Lamps," a metaphor for the state I was in when I wrote them, walking among the Baiyun Mountains of Guangzhou, the most modern city of Guangzhou, looking for poetry from the bustling crowds. Every day, crowding the subway to commute to work, back to the bucket room, green lights and yellow rolls, pushing the window to look out, is the subway, highways, cars, tall buildings, crowded crowds, a variety of goods... I am very familiar with these scenes, they continue to appear in my poetry, I have written a lot of poems expressing the world, I like the poetry full of the smell of fireworks and the quarrels of the world, they are the sounds of machines, orders, drawings, plastic, iron pieces, turning knives... It's also capital, commodities, profits, GDP, multinational corporations, networks, these are the lives that I am familiar with. When the epidemic continues to change the rhythm and habits of my life, I turn from a lively industrial area into Baiyun Mountain and Chinese classical poetry, and life seems to shift from the mundane to the lonely lamp, which is the transformation of this state of mind.
Excerpted from Poetry Monthly, No. 1, 2022