Poet Munk: Painting is forced to make a living
He said that the more wisdom the better, and the simpler the personality, the better
Reporter Zhao Xiaolan
Profile: MongKe, formerly known as Jiang Shiwei, was born in Shenyang in 1950 and moved to Beijing in 1956. In 1969, he went to Baiyangdian in Hebei Province to join the team, and in 1978, he co-founded the literary journal "Today" with Kitajima. "Obscure Poems" represent characters, and his works include "Sunflowers in the Sunshine" and so on.
"You're writing, aren't you?" I will not accept any TV interviews. Munch deliberately stressed to reporters on the other end of the phone. Later, when we met, he explained that once a TV station interviewed for more than two hours, and the result was only one or two minutes out of the film, all about Gu Cheng and Haizi, "Get a headlight to shine on me, fake, I am not an actor." ”
On a hot summer day, the power was cut off, and Munch carried a bowl of porridge and sweated and chased his daughter to feed. Seeing the "Global People" reporter coming, he hurriedly put down the small bowl and introduced: "This is my daughter, almost 3 years old." This is my lady. "The lady is young and beautiful, the daughter is clever, and this studio in the Songzhuang Art District in Tongzhou, Beijing, is also their home. The poet Munk, who is more than a year old, now has another profession - painting.
Representative of the "Baiyangdian Poetry Group"
Munch's original name was Jiang Shiwei, because he was thin and very agile when he was young, known as "monkey", the poet Kitajima gave him this pen name based on the English pronunciation of the word "monkey". Munch is a "less whitehead", born white hair at the age of 16, began to dye his hair at the age of 22, and let it go after the age of 40. Today, his full head of white hair and a good body shape have become the favorite subjects of many photographers. "I'm a model for people!" He laughed.
Munch's fate with poetry began during the Cultural Revolution. At that time, Baiyangdian, Hebei Province, which was close to Beijing, had a strong poetry team, which was later called the "Baiyangdian Poetry Group", and Munch and his classmates Duoduo (Li Shizheng) and Nezi (Yue Zhong) were known as the "Baiyangdian Poetry Group" Three Musketeers.
The time goes back to the time when Munch was 15 years old, and when he was in his second year of junior high school, the vigorous "Cultural Revolution" began and the school was closed. Because of his father's rectification, Munch was banned from participating even the Red Guards. The father was angry at the unit and came home and threw a tantrum at the children. So in the winter of 1969, when Munch's classmate Duoduo in Beijing No. 3 Middle School asked him to go to Baiyangdian to join the team, Munch, who was suffering from a 39-degree fever, did not hesitate to follow him. For him, a different environment and a home away from the mess was the best choice at that time.
The life of the team is extremely boring, and many of the young people are the children of high-ranking cadres, and there are many books in the family, so they find out and circulate them to each other. The poetry of Pushkin, Heine, Tagore, Neruda and others, and the works of the "Beat Generation" in the United States have deeply influenced Munch. After watching Kerouac's "On the Road", he once emulated the protagonist of the book, ran away on the train without a penny, and experienced a physical and mental adventure like an outlaw.
In addition to reading, Munch and his classmates Dodo and Nezuko also compete with each other and encourage each other to write poems. "At that time, the intellectuals and young people in various villages in Baiyangdian were writing poems, because writing poetry is the easiest thing, and it is enough to have a piece of paper and a pen." But writing poetry is also very dangerous, "it is reactionary, and if it is not done well, it must be caught." Their poems could not be approved, nor could they be published in public, but could only be read in private.
It was in this environment that Munch ushered in a peak period of poetry writing. In 1973, at the age of 23, he wrote many representative poems. "The sun rises / The sky is bloody / Like a shield ..." The poet and critic Tang Xiaodu did not hide his inner touch when he read Munch's "Sky", he marveled at how instinctively Munch was loyal to his intuition, emotions and imagination in a crazy era, "its coldness, its indignation, its deep sigh and mature worries were unimaginable at that time." ”
Munch is known as the "Child of Nature", and his poetry is bold, authentic, and refuses to be distorted by external society. The scenery of Baiyangdian, the experience of wandering and exile, gave Munch another opportunity to preserve a pure land for poetry in his heart. In 1976, Munch, who had been in the queue for 7 years, was the last to leave from Baiyangdian, and the "Baiyangdian Poetry Group" was also dissolved.
Founded "Today" with North Island
After returning to Beijing, Munch had his only official job so far – working as a worker in a paper factory in Beijing. Although the leaders were not bad to him, he was always a little absent-minded when he worked. He had close contact with several old acquaintances who wrote poetry, including Kitajima, whom he had met in 1972. Kitajima's original name was Zhao Zhenkai, and after the fame of the Baiyangdian poetry group spread, he once ran there and took out some of his poems to show Munch and others. In the process of exchanging ideas, the two became friends.
In 1978, Kitajima mimeographed his own collection of poems, Strange Beaches, and suggested that Munch also publish one. But Munch didn't have many of his own poems, most of which had been destroyed. "At that time, we were just writing our feelings, and we didn't have the consciousness to criticize anything. I didn't take it seriously at all, and I didn't expect to take a career as a poet in the future. Fortunately, when copying was popular, Kitajima helped Munch collect some works from his friend Zhao Yifan and others, and eventually Munch also mimeographed the poem "Heart Matter". As they went, munch and Kitajima deepened their friendship and trust.
In 1978, Munch and Kitajima sniffed the changing times and vaguely felt that something should be done. Later, they formed an editorial board and began to organize poetry journals. Because there were not enough manuscripts, they found many poems that were scattered during the "Cultural Revolution", so that the poems buried in the ground during the "Cultural Revolution" decade could be seen again. They also expanded new authors, like Shu Ting, Gu Cheng, and Jiang He.
After the manuscript was collected, in order to keep it a secret, they secretly carved wax paper and mimeographed in a peasant's room, and finally printed the inaugural issue for more than ten days. Munch named the journal Today, and they were excited that "history has finally given us the opportunity to sing the songs that our generation has buried in their hearts for a decade."
Xu Jingya, a critic who studied at Jilin University at the time, once described his feelings when he won the inaugural issue of Today in 1979: "Can poetry still be written like this? I was completely stunned. As Teresa Teresa sighed after listening to the tape, song, can you still sing like this?! "The impact of Today on the young people of the time was evident.
From its inception on December 23, 1978, to the end of 1980, "Today" has published a total of 9 issues, accumulating a stable number of subscribers. But the good times did not last long, and it finally received a sentence ordering the suspension of publication. Despite the efforts made by Munch and others to legalize Today, they did not succeed in those days.
"Today" was discontinued, and Munch was fired from his original unit for "not doing his job" and became a temporary worker who watched the gate. Disillusioned, in 1981 he printed his own collection of poems, Old Dreams, and in 1983, he published his collection of poems, Sunflowers in the Sun. The 80s were his worst time, but it was also another honeymoon period with poetry. He didn't know why he wrote it, or the meaning and value of those poems: "I write poems purely for interest. ”
He has also tried to reproduce a literary group like Today. In 1987, Munch, together with Yang Lian and Tang Xiaodu, founded the "Survivor Poetry Club", "at that time in Beijing, all the poets who had some influence were basically members of this club, including Haizi." In 1991, he and Tang Xiaodu founded the folk poetry journal "Modern Chinese Poetry", but under various difficulties, it was finally solved.
In 1990, Kitajima revived "Today" overseas, hoping to continue some of the spiritual purposes of the old "Today" and turn the new "Today" into a cross-regional Chinese literary pioneer magazine, "resisting the violence of language, the mediocrity of aesthetics and the indecency of life" in the hope of continuing some of the spiritual purposes of the old "Today". Munch was casual and frank about this: "I desperately ran a journal and fought for the freedom of writing. But anything, when it disappears, is over, and when it reappears, it's another thing. ”
His portrait roared out of the folk songs of northern Shaanxi
When China entered a period of rapid development of commercial society, the boom in poetry creation could not be replicated. In the 1990s, Munch basically did not write poetry, did not have a fixed job, and went abroad every year to participate in some poetry activities, relying on some meager appearance fees to make ends meet.
After the new millennium, he set up a family, living with his ex-wife in a room of more than ten square meters in Beijing, or renting a house, without even a window. After his wife became pregnant, the burden on him became heavier. Old friend Aidan suggested that he try to sell oil paintings to make money, and also sent him a full set of tools for easels, paints, and brushes. He had no professional training, and the first time he painted, he painted all night by feeling. The next day the wife woke up and said, "It's okay." He had the confidence in his heart and painted 12 paintings in 3 months. He set up an exhibition with the help of friends and used the money from the sale of paintings to pay a down payment for a house.
This painting is more than ten years old. Munch divorced his ex-wife and had another daughter with his current wife. Painting has become his stable way of making a living: "I just came out of this book of poems, the publishing house will give 30,000 yuan, I said that the money is not needed, all changed to books to send friends." 」 And I can sell 30,000 yuan for a painting, and I can write a collection of poems in my lifetime, which is worth a painting in a few days. ”
Munch said that he would not set the content of his creation before painting, whether it was composition or color, all due to temperament. Some people have linked his paintings to his poems, but Munch says they are two different things. Writing poetry requires a time when one is alone, quietly pondering. But painting can still be carried out happily even if it is chaotic around: "Painting is a visual art, showing the pictures and scenes of fixed moments, but poetry contains extremely rich connotations and extended space, and poetry is richer than painting." ”
"Munch's paintings, or a forest, or a pot of flowers, the image is simple, as for what tree, what flower, it does not matter, but the color is very bright and solemn, the brushstrokes are strong and dry, like a folk song in northern Shaanxi that roars out." Artist Li Xianting commented on this. The reporter asked him if he was influenced by Western Impressionist painters, and he modestly replied: "I really like it, but I can only look up to the mountain." ”
Munch considered himself merely a painter and did not want to see himself as a poet in a serious way. In writing, he never forced himself, it was time to start and end when it was time to end. Friend Tang Xiaodu once commented: "He has never taken the initiative to submit articles to newspapers and periodicals, nor has he applied for publication to any publishing house, let alone asked others to write reviews." Writing poetry is just a favorite thing to do, no different from other hobbies in his life. ”
Times have changed, but for Munch, he still maintains a childlike and ordinary heart, living his favorite "poetic life", writing poetry, painting, and inviting three or two friends to drink old wine. In his view, the more wisdom the better, and the simpler the personality, the better. He always had an unquenchable lamp in his heart that belonged only to himself.
Sunflowers in the Sun
Did you see that
Did you see that sunflower in the sunshine?
You look at it, it doesn't put its head down
Instead, turn your head behind you
It turned its head away
It was as if it was for a bite to break
That's on its neck
The rope that held in the hands of the sun
……
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