(Gannan Daily, March 23, 2022, 3rd edition)
Mandarin characters in this issue
Writer Profile
Li Zhiyong, born in Lintan County in 1969, has published poems in journals such as Poetry Journal, Poetry Monthly, and Yangtze River Poetry Journal, and has authored the poetry collection Green Book.
One person constitutes a world
—— Poems about Li Zhiyong
□ Wang Li
Sometimes I see Li Zhiyong walking on the street, like a leopard who has just come down from the hill, has long since converged on the inner storm, and even the pattern on his body seems to become docile - Li Zhiyong is more like an "illusion", when you write his name, he has long ceased to exist in your language. He turns away, away from these "worn-out symbols" you've been using. He was "alone, roaming excitedly in the illusion".
Li Zhiyong and I live in a small town. Objectively speaking, the town is very small and small. But his first collection of poems, The Green Book, started at the post office, passed through the communication room, and delivered it to me. I believe this arrival is more like a "real" arrival. The book of poems was always at my hand, and I sometimes picked it up, read it a few pages, and put it down irritably. But before long, it was like a temptation, attracting me to open it again. For me, "this book is like a shackle to me." I wanted to break free of this shackle, and I longed to be tied up by it repeatedly. And so on, haunting.
Compared with Gannan and compared to Gannan's poetry writers, Li Zhiyong had already resolutely passed through the practice of caressing and touching the skin of his own poetic geography at the beginning. He wasn't lifting his feet to leave where he was. For Li Zhiyong, the habitual thinking and pretense attached to these words have turned them into ruins, a pile of useless ruins - this is not what he wants, he wants to go inside things. He actually "didn't go for a walk in the yard behind things", he went "inside" of things. Like the transparent back of a watch, he saw the beating heart of things, those secret trajectories. He drew "bones" from these truths. These bones are not the "literary means" used by Li Zhiyong, but precisely the truth of his inner world that he perceives.
Therefore, Li Zhiyong wrote in "his own language". He strides away from the language we share in order to avoid loneliness, and the thinking that produces this "collective language." He smeared his fresh blood on a page, and later on a computer screen; there was only genetic genes and vital signs in the blood, bubbling with vigor. Sometimes it was like a fog that slowly disappeared; sometimes it gathered together to form clouds and rain heavily. In the heavy rain of this language, there is a chirping of birds, with a complex voice, somber and desolate—the symphony of this body of life, carried out alone in the wilderness of the inaccessible heart, and no one can change the course of its thick melody.
He was "the dark horse" who gave the poems written in this language to "the one who could read them."
At the moment, we tend to see language as a shadow and projection of reality. But the reverse is more accurate: reality is the shadow of language (Bruno Schultz). If you read enough of Li Zhiyong's poems, you will find that among these poems, there are many of Li Zhiyong's ideas about "writing". This is not surprising. As a self-awakening writer, he must speak the "truth about himself." Li Zhiyong wrote: "Language itself is part of reality." This is of course true. No matter what kind of variations and imaginations Li uses to construct his poetry, these variations and imaginations come from the reality of being on the side. But if it is only an imitation or reproduction of reality, literary works will lose their meaning of existence. Li Zhiyong used the cloak of psychedelic, entangled, and even absurd poetry to construct a "psychological reality" that was even greater than reality.
Li Zhiyong uses a dreamlike, tangled poetic language to incorporate the vast reality of vientiane, but it is far higher than reality. He is both a writer and a present, an observer, a thinker. Like Bruno Schultz's novel, through the transcendence of the imagination of reality, the distance between dreams and reality is eliminated, so that they each blend with each other for themselves, so that they are clear and vague and uncertain. Therefore, I would like to say that for Li Zhiyong, "reality is the shadow of language." But in any case, through the smoke screen of the language he created, what we see is Li Zhiyong's deep-rooted concern for people's "survival situation", especially the "spiritual situation". For individual life, there is no greater and more real existence than "psychological reality".
Li Zhiyong's poetry, "Incorporating a vast world into small things." Therefore, Li Zhiyong uses elements of fiction to narrate in some poems. The ubiquitous "details" and "scenes" are important factors that make the poetry flesh and blood full and scatter around, and it is also an important means to carry a certain idea of the poet. Therefore, some of his poems break through the boundaries of "poetic form" in the usual sense, and have a certain shape or quality of the novel. Li Zhiyong said: "Our language was our flesh a long time ago, but now it can no longer be done." We need to abandon the weak generalized lyricism, and we need the writer to subvert the poetic language (or form?). ) to start, and then make your own unique voice. Of course, the narrative of poetry and the narrative of the novel are not the same thing, but at least from Li Zhiyong's poetry, it can be felt that "narrative" is not the patent of the novel. This kind of narrative makes Li Zhiyong's poetry become "entangled" and penetrate each other, and the sentences are repelled and cemented, and it is difficult to understand.
With details and scenes, Li Zhiyong restores us a strange world of feelings and thoughts, which is more complex than reality, higher and farther, so it is more real.
——Li Zhiyong is alone, moving forward silently. Like all quiet writers, I just wrote my own poems. The strange and mysterious imagination gives his works a sense of strange grandeur, and also provides readers with unlimited possibilities. He is a quiet explorer, and when it comes to writing, he insists on only one thing: to write works that are satisfactory to him and worthy of the reader.
As a person with a clear understanding of the "poetic reality", as a "skeptic", Li Zhiyong has a strong enough mind to resist the noise and impetuosity. He insisted on his secret labor, carrying an axe/fending for himself. That's just grief." Li Zhiyong even doubted the clarification and affirmation of things by time, writing: "This book ... Or maybe a stone awaits the next reader." He actually has enough composure and confidence in his writing. As I perceived, "this man constitutes a world almost alone".
Selected readings of good works
Li Zhiyong's poems
walk
Facing these mountains all year round, everyone sometimes goes to the yard behind some things
Go for a walk
See the light, silence and empty houses there
Here, there is such a large yard behind almost everything
The sun shines on the grass and snow inside
I even went into the yard behind the cup on my desk and behind the ink bottle and wept
And you take the train and go behind some other thing
Mountains surrounded here for years, even when we came to the back of something
Lying on the courtyard wall, you can also see their snowy mountaintops
I saw the children on the hillside laughing and running, and the strength was incomparable
A stone was thrown into the hearts of their parents
A generation, dying in the yard behind those things, however
It can be warm, or it can be a life
You're walking on a Mercedes-Benz train, and probably so is it
（1999.1）
basketball
Basketball, or children's evening, slowly darkened
The basketball was slapped, grabbed in the hand and thrown out
From the hill, you must be able to see that it is a strange thing
Like the common heart of the eight or nine children, it beats there
The sidelines were gravel, dry grass and light snow
Overhead, in the clouds, there was only the roar of the clouds themselves flying low
One kid added in and grabbed one too
The ball, round, was held in his arms
There was a glimmer of light in the dusk, and none of them knew about it
It's a grain of dust
Years later, today, it has slowly fallen
（2003）
inkpot
Ink bottle, very much like a statue of a headless man
But I hope on my paper that he can still continue to fight
In the ink bottle, there are already a lot of things stored
Enough for one person to persevere in the wilderness
In winter, the ink still cannot be drunk
But it's also decreasing. Trees stand in the snow
But they all want to get out of here and absorb other water
With the arrival of spring, the ice in the ink also begins to melt
In the fields, some land is being sown, some land has been planted
I also went back into the house
As you write, you wait for the ink in the bottle to slowly rise
（2015.3）
husband and wife
Looking out from the balcony at the snow-falling town, he remained silent to his wife
The snow was very light and white, coming from afar. If there really is a butterfly from the kitchen
It may also be very much, very red, from under the pot
Fly out of flames
Because of the high temperature, no one dared to catch it, did not dare to feed
When the husband was eating, he did not know how to use chopsticks to silently write in the bowl
How many words, day by day is close to a book
If not those words
He probably couldn't swallow anything
At the moment, the wife was quietly reading what he had written in the bowl
In the kitchen, a man cried
So some bowls have cracks, and some bowls have
Only then did there be a voice, and there was an ability to be silent
（2016.4）
Dreaming again of the summer of my childhood picking ears of wheat
It was hot, and I felt lonely in the wheat fields
There were bright red strawberries in the grass on the edge of the ground, and me
Can't pick it. Stubble pokes at the ankle. Bugs are there
The ground chirps. Blades of grass rattled. I also shouted to the valley
All the sounds, in the end, disappeared in the form of echoes
Now I know best, but I often lie open in the middle of the night
Waited, the last bit of echo
The roof rolled over with the sound of thunder, rain and wind
Same as in childhood, but is reshaping my ears
I picked up an ear full of wheat and stood silently in my dream
Wait, hoping to hear something
Years have passed since the death of my father and mother
No one ever praised me anymore
（2019.12）
Plum flowers
The plum blossoms have something like the new snow in the early morning. In one piece
In the newly haired shrubs with young leaves, the eyes of the bird appear darker and brighter
The wind blew some of the white petals of plum blossoms to the ground
Some fall into the spring water and will slowly melt in the spring water
It's hard to believe that thirty years have passed, not like that
Thirty books were placed somewhere, but all disappeared
And this mountain forest has always remained here. Birds occasionally
Will chirp a few times. Plum blossoms bloom quietly, and the trees are snow-white
I watched alone for a long time and felt it
The difference between one flower and another, felt
The kind of loneliness that comes with simplicity and simplicity
（2020.11）
opus
Sometimes, only those works are on the table
Those poems we wrote
In hinting at us, thinking we might
It is also a work that has been conceived and created by others
I walked past those poems
Try your best to control it weakening
My breath, but still by them
Discern it. They think
Our breath has been
It permeates our imagery. They know
Under a certain lamp there is our author, he
Never thought about recreating anything
I stand and sometimes feel often to our readers
Just read us on the back of our necks
Can feel their gaze
And the heat they exhale
Those poems believe that we have hair, our skin
It's like words constructing a text
Some periods appear among us
Very suddenly, and then there were too many commas
It was very obscure and boring. Those poems
It feels like we haven't been read yet
Therefore, it seems a little quiet and lonely
Those poems are always there
Doubt our meaning
So it's always watching us
（2021.10）
Gannan Daily official micro statement
Gannan Daily's original WeChat, may not be reproduced without authorization. Some of the pictures and articles in this media come from the Internet, the copyright belongs to the original author, if it involves copyright and copyright, please contact us in time, and will be paid a certain amount according to regulations.
Editor 丨 Zhonggecao Responsible editor 丨Hou Jingjing
Audit 丨Zhang Shuyu Final Review 丨 Zhang Dayong
Pay attention to the most heartfelt WeChat public platform
▼