Guo Moruo's "Notes on Reading Suiyuan Poems" shows the poet's experience in reading and writing poems. Profile picture
【Exploring the charm and tension of details】
When it comes to the details of literary writing, it is common to think of narrative genres such as novels and dramas. When talking about poetry writing, we tend to focus more on key words such as imagery, language, form, and rhythm. In fact, the problem of details is also an important topic that the art of poetry writing needs to face and deal with. It is of outstanding practical significance to go deep into the current scene of modern Chinese poetry writing, and to examine the existence type, expression and aesthetic value of details in multiple directions.
Details are an important path in the construction of texts
In 1919, Hu Shi, the original advocate and practitioner of new poetry, wrote in the article "On New Poetry": "Poetry must be concrete, not abstract. All good poems are concrete: the more specific they are, the more poetic they are. Any good poem can produce in our minds a - perhaps many - obviously compelling images. This is the concreteness of poetry. This is an important critical document of early new poetry, which Zhu Ziqing called "the golden rule of poetry creation and criticism", and can be regarded as an overall planning and design of Hu Shi's new poetry writing. The "concreteness" mentioned here is a logical starting point for establishing the legitimacy of new poetry writing. This point of view is aimed at the old style of poetry writing, which was mired in self-repetition and difficult to return to in terms of poetry at that time. In order for new poetry to truly gain artistic autonomy and independence, and to construct mature texts with aesthetic self-consistency, rich and unique details are needed to provide strong discursive support.
Shen Yinmo's "Moonlit Night" is widely regarded as a representative work of early new poetry, a poem that wins by details, "The frost wind blows, / The moon shines brightly." / I stand side by side with a tall tree, / but not leaning against it." The lyrical subject in the poem and the image of the tall tree look at each other, and are highlighted and emphasized through the action detail of "standing side by side", presenting the common self-image of pursuing independence and liberation during the "May Fourth" period.
Similarly, many of the works in Guo Moruo's poetry collection "The Goddess" also fully demonstrate the important role of details in the construction of texts. In addition to the use of free verse and the beginning of each line with "I", the third stanza of the poem presents the painful process of self-image from the external world to the inner space, from the hurricane to the new life of Nirvana, with complex and varied and progressive action details, "I run, / I scream, / I burn." / I burn like a fire!/ I scream like the sea!/ I run like electricity!/ I run, / I run, / I run, / I feat, / I eat my blood, / I gnaw my heart and liver, / I run on my nerves, / I run on my spinal cord, / I run on my brain". These verbs and the modifiers attached to them as adverbials work together to create the expressiveness of the details of the action, making the image of the lyrical subject appear three-dimensional and full, and also fully and distinctly reflect the spirit of the times.
If classical Chinese poetry provides a certain aesthetic aggregation effect for the presentation of details with strong formal norms, making it form a common "poetic eye" in classical poetry, and then obtaining a significant expression effect, then the more open and diverse text forms of modern Chinese poetry create a variety of artistic possibilities for the presentation of details. With the continuous development of the artistic exploration of modern Chinese poetry, the realization path of details in the construction of poetry texts has become more and more diverse, and the space for expression has become more and more broad.
For example, in the poem "If We Don't Go to War", written by Tian during the Anti-Japanese War, "If we don't go to war, / The enemy kills us with bayonets, / And he will point to our bones and say: / 'Look, this is a slave!'" In this short poem, the strong sense of scene created by various details such as action and language and the resulting tension of expression make the reader feel a great shock both visually and audibly. At the same time, Ai Qing's poem "Snow Falling on the Land of China" shows a broad imagination and a large vision in a long length, but this "big" effect is also achieved through some carefully considered small details. There are detailed depictions of the "wrinkled faces of the northern peasants", "the Chinese peasants who emerged from the woods, / driving the wagons, / wearing fur hats, / braving the heavy snow/where are you going", and there are also accounts of the tragic plight of the "unkempt young woman" in the water towns south of the Yangtze River, "along the river on a snowy night, / a small oil lamp is moving slowly, / in the broken canopy boat, / the lights are reflected, and the head is hung / who is sitting"; There is also a sympathetic concern for the larger group of victims and a deep cry for the fallen land, "Those lands gnawed by beacon fire, / Innumerable, land cultivators / who have lost their livestock / who have lost their fertile fields, / crowded / in the dirty alleys of despair of life, / where the land of hunger / faces the gloomy sky / stretches out begging / trembling arms".
The two poems, Tian Jian and Ai Qing, have very different writing styles, but they have the same goal, showing readers the different ways of realizing details in the construction of modern Chinese poetry texts.
Details are the condensation of everyday life and life experience
Compared with classical Chinese poetry, the poetic generation mechanism of modern Chinese poetry is more complex. This is related to the shift of the writing language from classical Chinese to modern Chinese, and it is also closely related to the change of poetic form from closed to open. In the open and inclusive poetic generation mechanism of modern Chinese poetry, details have gained a broad discourse space and rich artistic possibilities, becoming a powerful driving force. This can be confirmed in the representative and excellent texts of modern Chinese poetry at different stages of development.
In 1939, Ai Qing gave a special example in his essay "The Prose Beauty of Poetry". He saw two messages written by workers on the wall of a printing shop, "An Ming/You remember the car", and he was keenly aware of the vivid poetry contained in the daily colloquialism: "This is beautiful." And it should be a poet of genius who wrote this notice. This language is alive, yet it is so new and simple. Such language is comparable to the best sentences in our best psalms. In fact, Ai Qing is here to use this vivid detail that can be incorporated into poetry to reveal an important source of the vitality of detail and discourse in modern Chinese poetry writing, that is, the spoken language used in our daily life. Ai Qing's early poetry writing, represented by "Dayan River, My Nanny", "The North" and "Trolley", made extensive use of colloquial details, making those poems not only full of artistic expression, but also showing a unique and personalized style.
It should be pointed out that in the oral writing of modern Chinese poetry, the use of details should avoid the random abuse of the minutiae of daily life, and it is necessary to discover and create those eloquent details that can truly empower the generation of poetry, so as to make it a new growth point of poetry in modern Chinese poetry writing. As the poet Tang Yangzong said, oral writing is difficult, and if there is no awareness of conscious exploration, those lines written in oral language can only be the kind of "saliva poems". If we fail to recognize and apply the characteristics of spoken language as vivid, changeable, and self-growing, give corresponding narrative strategies, and spread out the open, multi-dimensional, complex, and vivid multi-directionality of spoken language, we will not be able to restore its inherent richness as the most widely used human being, establish a realm of consciousness that is connected with each other, show the vast degree of freedom of its poetry, and make oral writing truly enter the state of freedom of writing.
The "narrative strategy" he mentions here is naturally different from the "narrative" in the narrative genre, but refers to the "narrative" that is common in modern Chinese poetry writing. The polishing and presentation of details is the meaning of this "narrative". Many of Tang Yangzong's works often use such narrative details to construct poetic situations, such as the poem "Silent Night", which reads, "Farther than the stars are my parents." Sitting in the atmosphere / Effective figures are emptier than air, you already have a wider country / Father is shaving, blue. Mother pinching a triangular button in her hand / That's the flower bud in front of the window...... "The warm and restrained details are presented, so that the expression of the mourning theme acquires a deep and timeless poetic texture.
The details that effectively generate the poetic spirit of modern Chinese poetry are often closely related to the profound experience of individual life. The contemporary poet Zhai Yongming wrote in "The Blind Masseuse", "'It's okay now, the cold has dissipated' / He put away the jar, everything has divine power / / The sonorous sound of dripping water / I know it has something to do with all the bones". She commented to herself: "Such sentences do not come from imagination, but from experience, and they are specific to the experience of every bone in the lumbar spine. Such expressive details obviously come from the poet's realization, elevation and creation of personal life experience, which in turn makes it a unique and distinctive poetic sense, and produces an expressive effect of less is more in the poetic text.
Details are the fulcrum of imagining the world and expressing the times
Modern Chinese poetry, which has gone through a history of more than 100 years, is obviously no longer a young literary genre. In the face of entering the era of mobile Internet, modern Chinese poetry writers should constantly adjust their discourse posture, not only maintain the same frequency and resonance with this era, but also strive to expand new imagination space and create more excellent poetry texts. Those expressive details constitute a powerful discursive fulcrum for the imaginary world and the era of modern Chinese poetry.
For the comprehensive and profound changes brought by mobile Internet technology to people's lives today, modern Chinese poetry writers should respond more quickly than other genres. For example, in response to the huge pressure on urban migrant workers caused by the mobile Internet service platform, the work "People in a Hurry" by the "takeaway poet" Wang Jibing makes a special response in a poetic imagination, "Drive out the wind from the air/Drive out the knife from the wind/Drive out the fire from the bones/Drive out the water from the fire// People in a hurry have no four seasons/There is only one station and the next stop/The world is a place name/Wangzhuang Village is too//I can meet every day/Rushing delivery people/Hammer the earth with both feet/ In this world, it is constantly quenched". Starting from real experience, the author focuses on the key word "rush", accurately approaches the pulse of the times, and carefully constructs a "community of details" that echoes and restricts each other, which not only expresses the hardships brought by the fast-paced life, but also shows the inner tenacity of the lyrical subject.
For the depiction of major themes of the times, modern Chinese poetry gives full play to the characteristics and advantages of poetry and literature to respond forcefully. This is fully interpreted in the poet Xie Yixing's poem "Xia Dang is Red", "All the way the red lantern leads you into the village, Xia Dang is red/Like a citrus persimmon tree, it also lights up the unforgettable lantern// The road is still bent, but it is no longer a sheep intestine trail / No longer need to cross the ridge and climb the mountain with a wooden stick // The story of the Luanfeng Covered Bridge from time to time turns over the past / The clear Xiuzhu Creek has been unloaded here // The woodland tea garden under the blue sky is scattered into an ecological beauty / The fragrance of tea and the fragrance of osmanthus flowers ripple in the air // Siphon the warm sun of golden autumn, once anemic/ Dangchuan Ancient Village, the blood is full of red light // In the lower party day is low and the smoke is high, you want / The small village has the same ups and downs as the big country. The author has ingeniously connected a series of vivid details through the powerful radiation effect of the core image "red", so that the performance of major themes is not only concrete and vivid, but also highlights the profound connotation.
In short, the problem of details is an important poetic proposition that cannot be ignored in modern Chinese poetry writing, and how to better play the role of details in the construction of poetry at many levels is worthy of every modern Chinese poetry writer's in-depth thinking and practice.
Source: Guangming Daily
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