After eight years, Yu Xiuhua finally published her fourth poetry collection, "Blossoming in the Back Mountain".
In my impression, Yu Xiuhua's love and hate are always direct and passionate, without the slightest concealment, so much so that she herself said, "Many times I am ashamed of my excess love." In fact, she has no need to be ashamed, like her poetic talent, "excess love" is a talent that is difficult to learn.
When we are accustomed to the "deviant" Yu Xiuhua in the field of public expression, opening her poetry collection again is like a glimpse of the back of the door: a person sitting in the village listening to the rain, shy, silent, and churning inside.
In today's article, we have excerpted the preface and several poems in "Blossoming in the Back Mountain". Yu Xiuhua said in the preface: "I am so lucky to be able to find the most suitable way for me, to use the most loyal words to put myself flat in the world, and all the misery has become a side dish." And it is also the luck of readers to meet her words.
Continue writing in the semi-light
It's like burying your head in the water, not caring about your breath, swimming all the way on, never finding the other side, but having no choice but to swim. This state is the state of my life, and it is also the state of my writing: writing without a purpose, writing without seeking to understand. To this day, I still can't give a definition, even a vague one, of "poetry". But I never felt ashamed of it, as if the light filled the room, and one still couldn't tell the ins and outs of the light. Camus said that the world is absurd, even if you have enough reasons to refute it, and the result of the counter-proof is still in the category of absurdity, so living with the "absurd" seems to have become a vague survival psychology for me.
Since the spring of 2015, my name seems to have had a physical reaction with poetry, when in fact it is not my concern. Poetry is the most real part of a person's soul, and being able to be liked by others shows that we can empathize, and empathy is far from a bosom friend, which is also something I deliberately avoid. However, it is precisely this empathy that makes us seem to have found a partner, and it is undoubtedly a comfort that when one person is looking at the stars in the middle of the night, there are others looking at the other place at the same time. From 2015 to the present, people have always asked me what changes have changed, and I will not say much about the changes that can be seen, although there are imaginary parts of this change, and I will not explain it.
What can I personally change? Aside from getting older, the changes in my life don't really affect my inner course much. A few years ago, the world's kindness came to me, and I also opened my arms to welcome and love. This is a passion that I will never repeat in my life, because it is a passion, it is somewhat impulsive, lacking in thinking, especially thinking about myself, of course, some obvious gains are put on the table, such as the recognition of the evil of human nature. When I have no way to escape, I can only choose to coexist, because I have always positioned myself as an "actor", and the development of the plot of life is beyond my control, so I have always been in a passive and negative state of mind. Fortunately, in all my love, the love for words is enduring, which no love can do.
I have always been an agitated person, that is, nervously sensitive, so in the relationship with people, it is more subject to people, and in the past years, it can indeed be understood as kindness. But the effect of this kindness is very limited: kindness that is not acted upon is hypocritical, but when it is put into action, it encourages me more than it does itself, which is also hypocrisy. I don't seem to have a personal sense of the outbreak and spread of the new crown epidemic in 2020, as well as the reaction in all aspects, except for my uncle who passed away during this period, and no one attended his funeral. I still thought that a funeral that no one attended did not mean that he died without dignity.
Camus came to my bookshelf during this period. He posed a question to me: Is the life we see the way we want it? How should we live it? What I understand is that he doesn't necessarily mean "just life", what is right life, does it really exist? No megalomaniac dares to draw conclusions. When I look down and think about it, what else can a man do if he looks at his life almost at the end? For example, if a flower has grown well elsewhere, but I transplant it into my yard, what good will it do? For me, there is nothing but proof of love.
In the past few years, I have received praise and a lot of insults, which has kept me awake at night. How unjust is this: I don't have much deep connection to the world, why should I bear the malice of making something out of nothing? When in fact I think in my heart I am superficial, and I don't even have the most basic wisdom. Fortunately, the foundation of my life is still solid, and although I am constantly spinning in this whirlpool, I have never detached myself from life itself. Poetry undoubtedly strengthens the foundation of this life.
I still can't give an answer to what poetry is, just like you ask me what love is and what religion is. Anything that has an answer can be solved, and most of the things that can be solved are not spiritual things. Most of the friends are poets, and every day new poems are produced, and we are like workers on the assembly line in a factory, how absurd is this. Everyone has something to say, but no matter how they say it, they can't tell the accuracy of their hearts, and this may be poetry.
Words are a person's state of mind. What your state of mind during this period will be reflected in the words, you are sad, the words are sad, you are quiet, and there will be silence between the words. It seems to be right to say that poetry is good or bad, rather than whether a person's soul is superficial or profound, noble or surrendered to the world. Nowadays, it is impossible to change the soul, but we should approach the noble soul, and this should become a person's realization.
In real life, however, I was scattered. I don't want to deliberately pursue anything, I just expect something that was supposed to converge with me to come to me unhurriedly. And poetry often pulls my wandering heart back into the flesh after my day's wandering, and it is also like a tunnel, when I walk in, the hole closes, allowing me to carefully sort out my gains and losses, and become my place in the earth, although it is futile, but useless things are also essential in one's life.
My original identity was that of a farmer, and this was in terms of the work and social status I was in in terms of my position. One day, I suddenly realized that identity is also the imprisonment of oneself, whether it is a farmer, a worker, a university professor, or a scientist, the imprisonment of identity has nothing to do with social status, it is precisely this definition that tempts you to break it. The ones who can really fly are never those who are self-conscious and rigid, but deviant. I think my own disability has deepened this realization. And it is difficult for a person to define himself as a pure poet, and once defined, the poet becomes a prisoner of words.
This book of my poems is still written about small love, because love has always filled my heart, many times I feel ashamed of my excess love, and when I really have no ability to love, every bit of love will be precious. So when I think about love, reason has interfered with my passion, and I realize that it is terrible, but there is nothing I can do about it. Sadly, some people still regard the peace of life as a virtue, and this is indeed the saddest thing.
I'm still writing, and that's what I'm writing about. It doesn't matter at all whether it's poetry or not, or what poetry is. I was so lucky to be able to find what suited me best, to put myself flat in the world with the most loyal words, and all the misery became a side dish.
I am a lover of this world
Or conversely, the world is my lover
When I was born in Qingming, the world welcomed me with its vegetation
It says: Given that you are so full of love
Give you a cripple, give you pain, give you tossing and turning
Polishing the night
We promise spring, we promise on all kinds of things
signature
The covenant is in the crevices of God's Word
Reflexively search for their own secrets
I promise you a hundred flowers to flourish, and the years will wither and prosper
You allow me to dig out my heart and lungs, but only a hundred years
You allow me to be drunk alone in the green mountains and recognize the flowers as neighbors
I love you for a thousand years, repeating everything
You give me 10,000 acres of rivers and mountains, and I only guard a courtyard
Just now, a grey magpie was combing its feathers in my yard
At this moment, you have the whole sky
Between us
Just a kiss away
When I stroke the leaves of the moon flowers that have just grown
Tremble gently
Unwarranted rejoicing
rainwater
The rain began to fall at nine o'clock in the morning, and the roses trembled
It was from eight o'clock
We talked for a while last night
Gardenias in the yard send a milky white aroma
"He didn't know I liked him"
His name smelled of mint and weighed on my lost teeth
on the dental plate
The rain began to fall at nine o'clock in the morning, and the fish were in turmoil
It started last night
We need a little brighter middle age
Let the green vine of the next year wake up and climb the windowsill again
I have a river full of pockets
Ushered in him
- The most dazzling wave
Whoever praises the rain will run in the rain
Our respective provinces slope down a hillside
The first to merge were the two rivers
The wind stopped, between one drop of rain and another
These are supplemented in parts
I'll take it out slowly
Yes, I'm in love with someone
The streets that are often walked, the sycamore is green again
Those palms are as green as their hands, and they can't wake up a person who doesn't know whether they are alive or dead
Some acquaintances are old
They don't care about the leaves of the sycamore tree, they don't care
Some people die in car accidents or die from disease
How many times have I fantasized about my own death
I've loved people who I didn't want to see again when I died
But this time, I hope
Downbeat in his arms
I hope he put a piece of yellow paper over my face
Like a sycamore tree putting a leaf
Cover on the ground
She lived alone
She lived a solitary life.
These abandoned flowers and plants that came to the yard to accompany her
The bird flew for a while and flew back again.
She had a lot of friends. She never invited them to her house
She has more than one pair of slippers at home.
More than a wine glass, more than one pillow on the bed
She is in the countryside, not far from a city.
There are parks, libraries, and government buildings in the city
There is a man shuttling through the city, and it is her small government.
Sometimes she feels like she should go to the small government and ask a small question
And those slippers, wine glasses, pillows at home
It made her lose her courage
As if she were a person who had attempted a crime.
She lived alone.
They often throw withered flowers and plants downstairs
Sometimes she goes out to dinner with her friends, and sometimes she bumps into someone
Will drink a lot of alcohol
Will miss the slippers at home
Thus becoming more and more insincere
Thoughts for the crowd
I spent forty years trying to blend in with a group of people. I want to be with them
Take a stop on the lively square
We don't have names. Names are between us
It only comes in times of shame
We don't have gender. Gender is when two people get along
will appear
Now, I'm really getting in
For the sake of being like them
I often hide my tail
Nowadays, I often want to run away from the crowd, I don't fit in with them
The crowd is them, and I am me
I hate them
At the same time, they are also demanding, hating me
An afternoon in Hengdian
1
The cuckoo has been screaming for some days. After the rape is harvested, the seedlings are planted
They laboriously and nakedly squeeze out the new greenery of the years
The water in the fields holds up the blue sky, but you know
It's shallow
Another ten years passed, in the same paddy field
His seedlings were also planted a little shallower
He was still counting on a good harvest to feed his body, which was aging year after year
Also counting on a little surplus
Fortunately, build a grave on the edge of this field and give it to yourself
2
My father and I no longer have land. Come back from odd jobs
He knocked the mud off his feet in front of the new rural house
The plants retreated from me into the distance. Not like in the original home
When you open the door, you will see the seedlings and weeds growing wildly
My mother was no longer visible
Now she hides in a small urn, hiding underground
No more news
Hengdian's crops are harvested every year
I still raised my father and I to be skinny
3
Fortunately, with a little force, I was able to pull out rice, wheat, and rape
Pull out turtledoves, magpies, crows, crickets
They were in my bones, pulling at me as I wanted to float up to the clouds
Yes, I won't float into the air
And I lost my mother, and I also lost half of Hengdian
The yard of the old house was full of fallen leaves
It's under my nose
Decadent. The tank that has been used for decades
Empty pestle in the kitchen
My persimmons in October hang in the autumn limelight
The fire rises from the bottom of the heart, and it touches the flesh and skin. The pain was born last night and implicated for the rest of his life
The persimmon tree in October holds a fire that the rain cannot extinguish
The persimmon tree in October holds up a lonely village
She sat under the persimmon tree until late at night. The wind shook the branches
Fire collided with fire, rain collided with rain
The despair that came out of it hung on the ground
At this moment, the village is hanging upside down in the sky. Hanging upside down with the countryside
It's me
and an era in her arms
We are a fruit that can fall from the wind at any time. Sweet placebo
What should be lost has been lost
What should have been gotten hasn't been gotten yet
This fall, she wrote you many letters
The ashes inside those words
It was never burned
Expressed wishes
You want to say how the stars fell, when he went away against the light
You want to say how the river dries up
And a wolf, it no longer cares about the sheep on the steppe
It knows which way the flock is running
They drove themselves up the cliff in the grassy grassland
No one can live in peace
No kind of love can last in tenderness
You open the doors and windows, and the sparrows fly in
You feel like you should fall in love with a sparrow
Only then does it not count the returns
No one can understand a heart that wants to reciprocate
It wears out all
There was only one light left
Now, you have to cover up this light
Like covering up a criminal in the middle of the night
Confession kneeling in front of the church
Sadness
You know, I'm forty-two years old. Oh, if only it could be reversed
It is equivalent to letting the roses bloom again and let the river return to its source
Let the mother come back to life
Yes, forty-two years old, a little old body
This is a body that has not been caressed by you
Standing on the tuyere, I heard the body whistling in countless holes
But how can I not love it, it brings my soul to you
Dew-stained, wet souls
An unwavering soul in your presence
I'm old, and it's a sad thing
But there is no such sadness
And how can there be compassion to meet you
This compassion is when I can't walk
You come along
As if to affirm that all my splendor is for old age
I like to live like this without hope
It's like the stars give themselves to the night sky
A river was given to the rainy season
It's like a migratory bird that gives itself over to migration
The fish gave its life to the narrow canal
It's like the wind has given itself to a deep alley
The alley handed over the annual rings to the full moon and the moon
I just gave myself to a village, to it
Years go by
Give half of your life to a new birth
The other half is given to death
I like to live like this without hope
A carnal body sits on the robe of the day
I praise what else can be taken from my body
It's like tearfully accepting something late