At 7:31 a.m. on January 3 this year, Mr. Zheng Min, the last of China's Nine-Leaf Sect poets, rode to the west of the crane draped in Xiwei Xiaguang, leaving us with immense mourning and endless thoughts. The ninth leaf of a generation of poets and the famous Nine-Leaf Poetry School suddenly passed away, so that the Nine-Leaf Poetry School, which has been active in the poetry world for eighty years, has since come to a gorgeous end. At the age of 102, Mr. Zheng Min became the terminator of the Nine Leaves Modern Poetry genre. Poetry travels far, and the soul of poetry lives on forever.
In the last ten years of Zheng Min's life, because I was a relative, friend, and cultural worker, I met and talked with her many times, and read a lot of her poetry theory, which benefited a lot and remembered deeply. When the old man travels far, he captures three feelings and expresses his feelings of remembrance.
Zheng Min's centenarian birthday feast with the author Ye Meike.
∽ Philosophy is the rhizome Poetry is the branches ∽
I have asked Mr. Zheng Min several times about the relationship between philosophy and literature and poetry. She told me that her understanding of the problem was shallow and deep. At first, she only thought that the content of poetry that was just writing scenes or expressing feelings was very superficial and should inject a certain amount of thought into it, so she thought of philosophy. Zheng Min originally went to Southwest United University to study literature, and later studied in the Department of Philosophy. He studied under Feng Zhi, listened to his "Goethe" class, and learned German classical philosophy with him. She also went to listen to philosophy classes taught by Feng Youlan, Chen Mengjia, Tang Yongtong and others. She also taught herself English and French philosophy. I also read some ancient Chinese philosophies, and tried to integrate Chinese and Western philosophies to guide my own poetry creation.
In his continuous study, Zheng Min realized that philosophy and literature are close neighbors, philosophy is the root, and poetry is the branch, and the two are inseparable. Poetry creation from a philosophical point of view and thinking will make poetry more ideological and more profound, and it can reach the depths of the human soul. Philosophy expands the realm of poetry and expands the imagination. In short, it can be summarized in two sentences: philosophy needs poetry to remove "astringency", and poetry needs philosophy to achieve "yiyong". She also said that the great philosophers of ancient and modern China and abroad are essentially poets, and excellent poets are also philosophers. For example, Confucius, Mencius, zhuangzi in China, Goethe, Shelley, Gibran and others in foreign countries are both poets and philosophers. In them, philosophy and literature are one.
Zheng Min put her poetic ideas into poetry. And consciously learn and learn from the strengths of her predecessors and contemporaries, for example, she read Feng Zhi's poems, and she greatly appreciated the complete combination of the depth and romance of Feng Zhi's poetry. She also likes to read poems by Xu Zhimo, Bian Zhilin, and The Abolitionist. In the end, Zheng Min formed his own unique poetic style: full of profound and timeless philosophical meanings, full of insight, ethereal and clear words, full of wisdom and cold humor. Thus establishing her as an important figure in the Nine Leaves School, and even a unique position in the poetry world, thus becoming an outstanding modernist poet.
Zheng Min's poems perfectly embody her poetic philosophy. Take "Freesia" as an example:
Locked in your fragrance like a buzzing / My memory of early spring / That was the gift of creation / But where will there be a kind of intoxication / allowed to live forever in this decaying flesh? ／......
Zheng Min's life photos in his later years.
∽ Music and poetry are sisters ∽
Once in a small conversation with Zheng Min, I asked about her health experience and longevity secrets. She said that she never deliberately exercised, nor did she deliberately take care of health and wellness, everything went naturally. But she felt that music, especially singing, was very good for the human body. She said that she insisted on practicing vocalization, singing, and listening to music every day, and felt that the effect was good. At a family gathering, she sang an English song called "The Last Rose of Summer" at the strong request of her relatives. Her tone is clear and moving, her singing voice is melodious and gentle, it is the standard bel canto singing method, and it is a level that can only be achieved by people with excellent talent and rigorous vocal learning and training.
She told me that when she was studying for a Master of Arts in English literature at Brown University in the United States, she also went to the conservatory for three years of sound classes. She says music is very helpful in her poetry. The music makes her poems more rhythmic, the melodies brighter, the words more charming, and more catchy to read. I felt the charm of music in her popular song "Golden Rice Bunch":
The bouquet of golden rice stands / through the autumn fields / I think of countless tired mothers / On the road at dusk I see that wrinkled beautiful face / The full moon of the harvest is towering / On the top of the trees, in the twilight, the distant mountains / around my heart / ...
In the 1950s, Tong Shi Bai Laqin, Zheng Min sang, Jin Ser and Ming.
∽ The radiance of love fills the world ∽
In the middle of the summer of July 2019, Zheng Min ushered in her 100th birthday (actual age 99, imaginary age 100). Zheng Min's daughter Tong Wei presided over the birthday party, and the Tong family's relatives and friends came from all over the world to attend her birthday party.
Because of the special circumstances of her family at an early age, Zheng Min was fostered in her aunt's house since she was a child, and her uncle discovered her talent and insisted on letting her study, including sending her to study abroad, which made this female poet. In 1951, Zheng Min married Tong Shibai, who also studied in the United States and later became the main founder of the construction of the famous Chinese electronics discipline and curriculum in the mainland, in New York. After the "Geneva Conference" in 1954, the couple and a large number of intellectuals staying in the United States broke through many obstacles and returned to their homeland. Husband and wife have been together for more than 50 years, Tong Shibai died in 2005, their son Tong Lang has been abroad, and Zheng Min has been accompanied by a child girl. Probably because she was far away from her biological mother since childhood, Zheng Min especially cherished the days with her daughter, and Tong Wei also spent as much time with her mother as possible. Influenced by her mother, Tong Wei was also a cultural worker, a newspaper reporter before retirement, and was fascinated by painting and poetry, and had a common topic with her mother.
Every year on her birthday, Tong Wei will zhang Luo relatives and friends to wish Zheng Min a happy birthday. Zheng Min and her husband's family have a particularly harmonious relationship. The Tong family is a big family, and there are many celebrities in the field of science and technology culture, such as Tong Shibai's father-in-law, Zheng Min's father-in-law, tong liao, a famous architect on the mainland, and Tong Village, a pioneer in China's antibiotic industry; Zheng Min's contemporaries, in addition to her husband Tong Shibai, are famous, as well as Tong Linsu, a leading expert in the field of chinese electronic physics, Zheng Min's concubine, Fu Shangyuan, a famous contemporary painter, and so on, and the younger generation has tong Wen, an internationally renowned communications expert. The Tong family attaches great importance to family affection, and even if the heavens and the south and the north will try to come and warm Zheng Min with family feelings. In addition to relatives, there are many cultural celebrities, followers of Zheng Min's poetry to participate in this grand event, chanting Zheng Min's poems, but also chanting their own creations, the literary atmosphere is very strong.
On his birthday, Zheng Min was dressed in red and red pants and pedaled red shoes, surrounded by everyone, he was particularly energetic and kind. Because he is a celebrity and a birthday star, like every birthday every year, everyone rushes to take a photo with Zheng Min, and Zheng Min still sits smiling and squinting, waiting for everyone to come and take pictures one by one, infinite love. The youngest of the grandchildren, Duo Duo, also waited for the opportunity to take a photo with the centenarian. Zheng Min was particularly happy when she saw the child, and the photo was frozen in the kind and kind smile of the hundred-year-old grandmother bending down to face the two-year-old granddaughter, and the mouth seemed to be dinging in the instructions and telling the blessings, and the picture was extremely warm and touching.
Zheng Min interacts with her young granddaughter Duoduo.
At this time, I remembered a passage that Mr. Zheng Min said when he introduced the fifth volume of "The Words That Mothers Did Not Say" in the preface to the poetry collection: "Maternal love is actually the source of human fraternity, and it is the prototype and foundation of all the noble ideals and virtues of human beings, such as peace, equality, mutual assistance, support for the weak, poverty alleviation, benevolence, love, and forgiveness." "From this picture of the grandchildren, from Zheng Min's poems, I understood the profound meaning contained in her words, and felt that under her elegant, wise, and benevolent appearance, there was an immortal child's heart full of holy maternal love and the purest truth.
In 2021, Zheng Min's 101st birthday party is still a grand gathering of relatives, literary friends and poets, and still interacts warmly with children. It's just a pity that it turned out to be the last of Zheng Min's birthday party. Tong Wei later said that she had a premonition that this was the last time Zheng Min was with everyone, and a month later Zheng Min fell ill and was hospitalized.
Finally, let me conclude the essay with a farewell note written for her:
The superstar of the Nine Leaf Poetry Literary Circle is brilliant
Centenarian Master Campus Tao Li Fangfei
Poetry travels far, and the soul of poetry lives on forever.
(Editor-in-Charge: Li Zhengrong)