Mu Ting: The creation of children's poems requires hearing the various voices of children

Photograph: Li Lei

Mu Ting, essayist and poet, member of the Chinese Writers Association, member of the China Film Literature Society, deputy secretary-general of the 3rd Chinese Poetry Society, and resident deputy secretary-general of the 4th Chinese Poetry Society.

The creation of children's poems requires hearing the various voices of children

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Feng Zikai carved a poem by the Qing Dynasty "poet monk" Eight-Fingered Tou Tuo on the mouthpiece that does not leave his hand: I love the child's body, and the lotus flower does not stain the dust. Scolding is only laughter, and hitting does not produce anger. Always be fixed on the situation, and rehabilitate yourself when people speak. It is a pity that the age is long, and the materialistic desire is naïve. Although this poem is not a children's poem, the "scolding", "laughing", "hitting" and "anger" in the poem, reading it, a picture of the child's "pure truth" and "innocent piety" quickly appeared in front of the eyes. Only by loving children to the point of worship can we become the child king supported by children, and can we outline the child's childlike appearance, childlike fun, childlike taste, and childlike way in a few strokes.

I thought that painting was like this, and so should children's poetry creation—when a children's poetry writer really entered the world of children, listened to their voices, and captured their heartfelt words, in order to write the works that children like to accompany them to grow up and stay in the depths of their memories. The definition of children's poetry has remained almost unchanged for decades, that is, poetry that is accepted by children as the main subject and is suitable for children to listen to, chant and read. It should conform to the psychological and aesthetic characteristics of the child, including both poems written by adult poets for children and poems written by children for lyricism. This definition is of course complete and precise, it clearly puts forward that in addition to the adult creative group, the children's poetry creation team is also an important part of the children's poetry creation team.

In fact, the creation and theoretical practice of modern children's poetry are dominated by adults. In other words, adult children's poetry writers and scholars actually control the discourse power of children's poetry creation and theory. In a word, the pattern of children's poetry creation and research is the pattern of adult children's poetry creation and research. This situation or situation, which has been formed intentionally or unintentionally, has always existed. At the same time, we unconsciously enter Zhuangzi's children's poetry theorem of "the fish swims calmly, it is the pleasure of the fish", but rejects the reminder and warning of "the son is not a fish, and the joy of the fish is known". This is the trap of inertial thinking, and it is also the misunderstanding of thinking.

In recent years, not a few scholars have successively called for children's poetry not to care whether the work is related to the function of children's aesthetic cognitive education. This seemingly novel view is definitely not a diagnosis and treatment plan for the symptoms of children's poems, nor is it a problem solving the old stereotypes of children's poems. The greatest significance of this view is to make the space for children's poetry creation more extensive, and the world of theoretical galloping is more boundless, but it does not clarify the source of children's poetry. In general, what exactly children's poetry is is an extremely large and complex academic question, beyond the scope of this article. TraditionalLy, Chinese children's poetry involves the aesthetic needs, aesthetic cognition, and transmission of aesthetic abilities of works. These three relationships are mutual, they exist and influence each other, in no particular order, not in the new category.

I had previously deliberately quoted the dialogue between Zhuangzi and Keiko, "Golden Sentence", to pave the way for Matthews, the founder and pioneer of children's philosophy who was on a par with "The Father of Children's Philosophy" Lippmann. Matthews wrote in The Philosophy of Childhood (Triptych Books): "Children are human beings and are entirely worthy of the respect that both morally and intellectually they should enjoy. What they are now and what they will become in the future should be respected. In fact, we should learn from children and let them enrich our lives, and more obviously, children are learning from us and letting us enrich their lives. This passage is undoubtedly a "philosophical" release of children's poetry creation and theoretical practice. It focuses on and succinctly illustrates the interdependence of us (adults) and children, emphasizing the relationship of mutual learning. In my opinion, Feng Zikai's worship of children at that time was a concrete action to learn from children, and it was Feng Zikai who completely put down the condescending authority of adults, crossed the gully of age, and "mingled" with children in a friendly way, shaping the "learning state" of zero-distance communication.

It should be said that at present, our research on the children's creative group of children's poetry is lacking, and the research on the works of this unique creative group is obviously insufficient, or lagging behind. As far as the entire creative group is concerned, the children's creative group of children's poetry is always in a weak position, which is inherently unequal, and it is objectively difficult to sit on an equal footing with the adult creative group of children's poetry. The imbalance and imbalance between the two is the birthmark of children's poetry. Another fact, the weight of children's poetry creation and theoretical discourse power is left and right in the hands of us adults. An unquestionable status quo is that the creation and theoretical ecology of children's poetry is that children learn from us (adults) day by day, and we rarely have the heart and courage to learn from children - it is undeniable that we do give a lot of pointing points to children's creations, but this has nothing to do with learning from children, to be precise, it is teaching, not learning. In this context, the budding child stars of poetry "waves and waves", however, most of their works are "adult poems" created by children, which we have indoctrinated.

Whether it is children's poetry creation or theory, we can't hear the various voices of them (children). The unequal relationship between the two makes the results of children's poetry creation and theory insufficient and incomplete. They (children) in the camp of children's poetry, have no right to decide, let alone the right to speak - even if there is, it is a case, it is also the right to speak under the inspiration of adults, and the right to speak under adult logic. We can boldly imagine that we are accustomed to asking "authorities" to compile a variety of children's poetry anthologies that should win the favor of children, and if such anthologies are tried to be left to children to choose, the results will be very different from those of adults. Suppose this vision is realized, that is, to show the sincerity of learning from the child, not a gimmick.

The study of children's creative groups that are truly geared towards children's poetry should be the study of children themselves, that is, "learning from children". When our research on children's poetry is close to the works of children's poetry creation groups, as well as the individuals of children's creative groups, learning and listening to children's needs, entering the current children's firmament, and radiating children's hearts, we may have a complete ability to create and study children's poetry, step into a real children's poetry river, and then restore the infinite charm of children's poetry.

Fang Weiping's "Three Hundred Children's Poems" selected by Fujian Children's Publishing House made me happy to see that this senior researcher of children's literature theory gave way to the children's poetry creation group in each volume with an independent space, and wrote affectionately in the preface: "I believe that the world of poetry is originally kind and everyday for children. They are the 'aborigines' who live here. I believe that researchers who hold this attitude have discovered the "unfairness" of children's poetry, and they are using the selection of children's poems as an opportunity to shout for the "indigenous people" of children's poems.

You may wish to try to give the discourse power of children's poetry to the "indigenous people" of children's poetry, and ask these "indigenous people" to pluck the strings of children's poetry, just as Matthews discovered children's philosophy, and found that the creation and theory of children's poetry has long existed in the wisdom of every child.

Source: Liberation Daily