Why do these "migrant workers" fall in love with writing poetry?

Wheat's manuscript

Youthful faces

Nowadays, more and more young people are keen to write poetry. As described in the Douban poetry group, in the 21st century, everyone has to write a few "crappy poems". The author of the poem is either an office clerk, or a securities practitioner, or an animation producer... Most of them are "beaten workers" wearing stars and moons. Some scholars say that this is the third wave of youth poetry. Poetry returns to the lives of young people.

Teacher Yuan Yuan:

Poetry is a trace of my existence

Light rain turns to moderate rain

My wife plucked my ears under the lamp

She pulled out a little

The rain outside the window is a little louder

Yuan Yuan is in the circle of friends, and he has to send several original poems with pure text every day.

Yuan Yuan, an administrative officer at Xi'an Jiaotong University High School, used to refer to himself as a junior clerk. Yuan Yuan admitted that he once imagined that he was a mover or truck driver in a supermarket, working without brains, he could work while thinking wildly, and he also had time to write poetry after work.

After graduating from the Chinese Department of Northwest University, Yuan Yuan turned out textbooks such as "History of Chinese Literature" and "Selected Literary Works of Past Dynasties" again. Since then, he has been writing poetry prolably. Most of Yuan Yuan's poems are simple and concise, with narrative and some witty and humorous colloquialisms. A scene or a conversation in his daily life can be his source of inspiration. For example, "Mr. Wang Wenbo accidentally dropped his mobile phone in the football field, and in an instant, the entire football field turned into a helipad." Or, "After visiting the market for a long time, I said to my wife that the fruits now grow more perfect than the other, and they taste tasteless." People too, she said. Yuan Yuan wrote 17 of these simple poems a day at most, but he said that "I still feel unfulfilled."

In the past year or two, Yuan Yuan has cooperated with a Chinese teacher to open an elective course on "Reading and Writing Modern Poetry". Interestingly, the students have not yet left the class, but several teachers have been "fanned" by this course. Some Chinese teachers were influenced by Yuan Yuan's spoken word poetry and began to slowly try modern poetry writing from ancient poetry writing.

After a semester or two, students' love of poetry also translates into the ability to write poetry. Interesting and bright poems began to appear in a burst of water, and some students found Yuan Yuan after graduation to share their poems with him. "At the year-end summary last year, I told my colleagues that I felt as if I had been busy for a year, but I didn't get anything done, but when I sorted out the poems, I found that I didn't live in vain this year." Yuan Yuan said.

Securities person Zhang Heng:

Writing poetry is a long-term mental training

A bunch of snow

The distance between us was pulled apart by the sea

You tell me that the snow on the North China Plain is still there

Beijing is still hot

A hint of spring color is reflected in the roadside trash can

I stood on the side of the road

Holding a bouquet of non-existent snow

Zhang Heng has been working in the financial industry for six years and is currently a securities practitioner. As early as high school, Zhang Heng began to write poetry on and off. After work, because Zhang Heng's girlfriend loves painting, on their own public account, each painting is embellished with a "propositional" poem created by Zhang Heng related to the theme of the painting. But as his work became busier, Zhang Heng stopped writing his own poems.

Until the year before last, he "picked up" his own poems again, and the opportunity was a business trip.

It was on the train back to Beijing from Qingdao, and just after meeting the customer, Zhang Heng's nerves in his whole body slowly relaxed from a tense state, but he still had an urgent task at hand. Zhang Heng hopes to stop a frame and stay for a moment on the journey of life. In the moment, only writing can slow him down a little. The scenery flashing outside the window was infinitely magnified, "Passing by a river, my thoughts seem to wade with this river." On the return train, Zhang Heng wrote a little poem: "Let us work together, away from the factory, away from work, go to the market not far away, exchange flowers and poems for cotton clothes and spices, and after lighting firewood, we still have song." ”

He couldn't remember how long he hadn't written a poem for himself, and his heart felt extremely stretched, and his bad emotions disappeared in an instant.

Later, Zhang Heng gradually let go of himself, and his poetry no longer revolved around the theme of his girlfriend's painting, but "poetry to poetry, painting to painting". Zhang Heng regularly collates the poems that have already taken shape, and last year, he found that he had written more than a hundred. The themes of these poems are not focused, ranging from a celebration of love to his views on certain social phenomena and his knowledge of the world.

Zhang Heng said that the combination of poetry and painting itself is somewhat niche, and people who like it will deliberately leave them messages in the background. "Winter turned away, drawing its cold knife from me, my hot blood unwilling to cool, vowing to spew a spring. Listen, in the flowerbeds by the road, the land is breaking. One day, just below this little poem, Zhang Heng received a sincere compliment.

"Poetry will help us discover the everyday from another perspective, so it often surprises people. Before reading this poem, the friend who left the message walked out of the alley from 9 to 5 every day, not knowing that the flower next to the alley had gone through the four seasons and changed into a different appearance. Zhang Heng said.

Writing poetry day after day is also a long-term thinking training. His brain may be "down" due to heavy work tasks, but his inspiration for writing poetry has never dried up. A sentence inadvertently said by someone around him, or a detail in life that most people overlook, may be captured by him and extended into a poem.

Before Valentine's Day, the big bunch of flowers in the trash can attracted his thinking. "Many people say it's better to go directly to the trash can to pick up flowers, but are the flowers in the trash still flowers? What would you think if you were a flower? Zhang Heng said that on that day, he composed the opening song "A Bunch of Snow".

Animator Wheat:

Borrow poems to cheer yourself up

Another Earth calendar 2020

Long winters

Vultures thrive in skyscrapers

A lot of the conversation is like peddling

The first to sell out is the most relaxed

The chicken soup sold on the street is always adulterated with poison

The plastic you eat in your mouth is finally piled up in your heart

The medical report was called Schrödinger's cat

Hello, Mom

Stop making me eat well

I want to go back to the amniotic fluid of spring

It's warmer there

Animation producer Wheat (pseudonym) has just emerged from a bottleneck at work. For her, it's a high-pressure career. Manage the cost budget of the project on schedule, ensure that the project is on schedule, lead the team... Wheat said that in the first four years of her career, she went through a period of suffering. And writing poetry, in a sense, is a small "rescue" she has completed for herself.

One night, after working overtime as usual, she walked out of the office building and found light snow in the sky and cold air pouring into her nose, and the urge to "escape" Shanghai suddenly surged in her heart. In fact, her work went very poorly throughout the day. Around 3 p.m., Wheat began to prepare and write a poem, but the scenery on the way home just catered to her mood, and this scenery also added a desolate touch to the end of the poem. "Life has dark light, and I can't bear to listen to my relatives and friends. The long wind and snow finally greeted each other, desperate. ”

For Wheat, the poem vividly shows the self-redemption of the lonely "social animal" - swallowing bitterness while self-dissolving itself. But it cannot be denied that poetry has a wonderful healing power, "The moment I stop writing, in fact, my mood has calmed down, and people have recovered from sensibility to calmness." ”

Wheat is a person who fears socialization, and she likes to deliberately take her eyes off people and instead focus on nature. There is a road where she has newly moved, and she observes that there is a cedar tree growing tall and vibrant on this road, and every time she passes by after work and sees it across the road, it is like a big embrace, making Wheat instantly feel safe. "In the bustling streetscape, it's like a little island waiting for you to approach it."

observe

Youth poetry returns

From Foxconn worker Xu Lizhi to delivery worker Wang Jibing, the huge contrast between identity class and literary and artistic creation has attracted the attention of society to the group of "migrant poets".

In addition to them, more "wild working poets" who are not known to the public are actually "you, me, and him" hidden around us.

According to statistics, Xiaohongshu's poetry creation related notes have exceeded two million, and these poems come from nearly 900,000 creators. On Douban, there are countless interest groups associated with "writing poetry". Among them, countless people wrote long and short sentences in mobile phone memos between "part-time work" and "moving bricks", completing the output of poetry.

Xiang Biao, a professor of human sociology, said that there has now been a third wave of youth poetry. If the poems of writers such as Beidao and Shu Ting in the first wave of youth poetry are very philosophical and historical, the next second wave is represented by campus folk songs, full of youthful atmosphere, focusing on expressing the delicate feeling of the taste of life. Today's young people's poetry is straightforward and impactful, but also humorous, emphasizing self-lyricism, but also full of imagination, with strong and distinctive characteristics of the times and modern colors. When they wrote about their work, netizen @ lukewarm wrote: "On weekday morning, I saw, a yawn, out of the door. When they sang about love, they @无吾写下: "You only care about love, the mountain of knives will go around you, and the sea of fire will flow up." ”

For these young people who are passionate about writing poetry, writing poetry has become a daily life, through which they will fully release the heroism of life and all romantic imaginations about life.

This edition / Reporter Wang Jingyi

Coordinator/Lin Yan Zhang Bin

Photo courtesy of Interviewee