It was the imagery in life that awakened me
Zhang Progress
I didn't want to write this preface. At the time of the compilation of this collection of poems, I felt that I had nothing to say, but that I had to say it when I published this collection of poems. Then you don't have to write a preface.
This collection of poems has been compiled for almost a year now, and has not yet been published. Unfortunately, all of us were confronted with this very contagious plague, no one dared to go out, and I was self-confined at home for more than a month.
During this month or so, when I had enough time, I began to read and write. Since I started creating a publishing company, I haven't stopped for years to read books and think about things outside of work. This accident forced me to re-examine myself.
In less than two months, I've probably written more than 150 poems. As a pastime, he also wrote a novel of nearly 10,000 words. This kind of explosive desire to create has never been seen in my recent years. And as a more serious creation, I think these poems that I have written latest are more mature. I completed a psychological transformation of writing: I put aside the inhibitions of those inhibitions, even the seductive words such as "pioneer" and "innovation", and opened a kind of aimless, muddy writing.
When did such a psychological transformation begin? There should be a gradual trajectory.
I have encountered many times the feeling of insanity in writing, and then forced my writing into a state of aphasia — that is, if I had been writing according to the concept or method at that time, I would have a voice in my heart protesting: What fun is there in writing like this?
It would be better not to write it!
I'm not talking about the meaning of writing, but the joy of writing. Writing is something that must be written for your own pleasure, if you are something beautiful to present. I'm not talking about having something to say, but something to present. Literature and art are such a thing, you don't even have something to say, you probably just feel like you've built a tower of babel, or just a crooked little mud house made out of mud. You just want to present it. Even if no one shares it with you, it doesn't matter, even if you can only take it out and look at it often, it feels good.
For me, this is the secret that poetry has been unfolding for me recently. I may have known it before, but I didn't really appreciate it, that is, this toy attribute of literature. When life is playing with you, you are also playing with life. The conservation of the universe is everywhere.
Let's be more direct.
Our creation is no different from the creation of a toy craftsman, it is all polished, polished, polished with limited time. It's just that the material we use is language. The problem we solve is the same, through this polishing, digging or shaping an image, preferably it is a unique image.
If you're lucky, the image you were going to create has a life, a being like you. Even more fortunately, some literary figures have become more advanced beings than the author of "her". This is the surprise in the creation.
Back to the problems I had in my own writing.
This time the aphasia must have made me feel too uncomfortable, one day I heard a certain wall in my heart, and a hole in the "click" opened. It didn't make a big move, but it opened up a path and made me feel very comfortable.
Maybe it was that afternoon in the sun.
On the afternoon of the third day after New Year's Day, I looked at the desktop of my workbench and wrote a poem like this:
Porcelain pen holder.
Datewood coasters.
Copper incense burner.
Clay made of fish dragon.
Cast iron puppies and kittens from Japan.
An Apple laptop with an American core.
I didn't know they were on my desktop
Do you also have a life?
But on the table top of the chicken wing wood
I saw whirlpools.
Then everyone's experience is the same
No matter where you're from
Whether it's a day of betting on the sunshine
Or at the moment when the clouds randomly change chips.
Someone chose to be outside the swirls of the texture of chicken wing wood
Reach out and look at it
And I'm going to jump in and write.
And it has to be like a jerk
Write it down.
So under the domination of this exuberant desire to create, in the case of enough time to be bored, I think that maybe when this collection of poems is published, something can be said.
"That Night, the Moon Is Like a Hard Candy" is a collection of poems that originally included my poems from 2000 to 2018, and in terms of selection, it was more "fresh" and "beautiful". I still have some hard, rough, and slightly offensive poems that I have not selected, and I will collect them separately. Before the book was officially published, I tweaked it again, adding a few pieces from 2019 and 2020.
From a public publication perspective, this is my first collection of poems.
I printed two collections of poems myself in 2001 and 2002, and in 2003, the Journal of Poetry of Heaven and Earth printed a special issue of poetry for me under the name of a special issue.
Most of these things I can't find, along with many of my poems, I can't find them anymore. In a sense, it may also be that they should be scattered.
My first published poem was in 1998, in a campus poetry newspaper, in my sophomore year of high school. Later, because he published poetry in some journals, he became acquainted with some young poets. Some of them are still in touch today, still friends, and perhaps lifelong friends.
In 2000, I went to Xi'an to study, began to surf the Internet, met a group of modern poets in the era of "poetry and rivers and lakes" on the Internet, and also began to enter a golden scene of modern Chinese poetry. At that time, I established the "Five-Pointed Star Poetry Society" with Li Silly, Xi Poison He Yan, Wu Mo, Cui Shu, etc., and established the "Liberation" poetry forum on the Internet, and began to establish a friendship with many young poets in poetry.
The poems are not arranged chronologically, and one of the earliest poems selected in the collection is "Winter, Frozen River". The poem was written in the winter of 2000, and it can be seen that I was greatly influenced by the poet Haizi at that time.
Between 2008 and 2011, I interrupted poetry writing for about 3 years.
The main reason was that my heart began to protest against writing such obscure, deliberately ambiguous words and verses: What is the pleasure of writing such a thing? Do you really think there's a surprise to be found in writing something like this?
The truth is, it doesn't. The fun and surprises were gone, but there was no new way.
In the fall of 2011, for no apparent reason, I started writing poetry again. It was the imagery in life that awakened me.
I think I was supposed to be a poet by nature.
In 1991, when I was 9 years old in an isolated village, watching the light of the evening sky fall little by little, I would feel lonely for no reason and want to write something in the homework book of elementary school; in 1995, at the age of 13, listening to the rain and cicadas of the summer morning, I began to secretly write poems to catch that feeling; in 1996, at the age of 14, in the desolate snow of winter nights, I met a white moon as big as a millstone, and I would sit alone in the cold wind for a long time and my chest was hot.
Although no one ever told me how to write poetry, the imagery presented again and again in my life called out to me. At that time, in addition to a few poems in the textbook, a village and a small town were even closed to the point that even Beidao, Haizi, and Gucheng did not know, let alone anything else.
That autumn in 2011, I was once again awakened by the imagery of the world, and began to interrupt my poetry writing for more than three years.
This time I hope that the poems I have written will no longer be a combination of mysterious words and phrases. Rather, every word and sentence is clear, and behind the poem are distinct images, and between those images can establish dramatic tension.
Later I called them myself: imagery drama.
For example, this book of poems includes: "Four Seasons on Earth", "Cliff", "Late Autumn in China", "I Received a Farewell Letter from a Tree", "Sea of People", "Fishing Dreams", "Spring Beast" and so on. Later, the poems I wrote always began to establish "storytelling between images" consciously or unconsciously.
Even more storytelling are "The Fox's Daughter" and "Skull Wine Glass", which even become forms between poetry and prose poetry because of the exuberant desire to express themselves. I don't know if they make sense, but I write very sincerely.
In 2012 I wanted to publish a book of poems for myself, but it was also the year that I started my business.
It wasn't until the end of 2018 that I began to free my hands and dedicate myself to compiling a book of poems for myself.
After so many years, I feel that it is not appropriate to write poetry according to the path set by whom, whether it is a big road or a small road. At least for me, I can only write poems that I feel I want to write, even poems with small patterns, even poems with no worldly value. This is also my own path.
I can agree with the path of many people's writing, but when I go on my own, I still have to go on the path that makes my thoughts accessible.
If a poet's writing is not faithful to himself, then what else is a poet?
When I started writing
Press your hand on the book of poems
I have taken an oath
In the vast expanse of time
I, the poet, owe allegiance only to myself
- "Virus"
By the time the book is published, the COVID-19 pandemic may be over. Hope we are all okay.
We live in this world, and we must be one of the most moving images in the universe.
February 24, 2020 in Beijing
Related books
"That Night, the Moon Was Like a Hard Candy"
Author: Zhang Jinjin
Publisher: Hundred Flowers Literary and Art Publishing House
Subtitle: A Selected Collection of Zhang Progressive Poems
Published: 2020-11-1
ISBN: 9787530679135
"That Night, the Moon Was Like a Hard Candy" is a selection of 155 short poems and 1 small long poem by the poet Zhang Jinjin in the twenty years from 2000 to 2020. 20 years, 7300 days and nights, 256 pages of plain paper, 156 small poems, "When I woke up suddenly, there was no new wine in the glass, and there were old tear marks on my face." The collection of poems is divided into 8 series, corresponding to: seasons, old times, loneliness, humanity, love, wilderness, short sentences, and fireworks.
In the self-prologue of the book, the author says that the book is more "fresh" and "beautiful" in the selection of poems. The binding production of the entire poetry collection is also fresh and beautiful. The cover features a PVC transparent outer cover with a hard-shell cover with a laser effect, which is both beautiful and wear-resistant. The poems are illustrated by the well-known painter Sanyu hand-drawn, using color and spot colors. Every poem in the collection, every design detail, is worth savoring.
About the author
Born in 1982 in Shandong, he now lives in Beijing. In 1998, he began to publish poetry, and his poetry works have been published in "Poetry Journal", "Star Poetry Journal", "Selected Poetry Journal", "Poetry Monthly", "Green Wind Poetry Journal", "Shilin", "Poetry Tide", "Youth Literature", "Northern Literature", "Shandong Literature" and other publications.
Since 2002, poetry has been selected for many years of poetry annual selection, selection, etc. In addition, his works have been selected into dozens of anthologies such as "Chinese New Poetry Yearbook", "New Century Poetry Dictionary", "Chinese Poetry Since 1991", "Chinese Pioneer Poetry Map", "Selected Chinese Spoken Language Poems" and so on.
In September 2020, "That Night, the Moon Was Like a Hard Candy" (Hundred Flowers Literary and Art Publishing House) was published, and the upcoming novel collection "Wild Story Collection" was published. In addition, he has published various works such as the novel "The History of Miao's Love" (Shaanxi People's Publishing House) and "If You Don't Love Each Other Again, You'll Be Old" (Culture and Art Publishing House).
Advocate pure poetry writing. After 2012, he injected dramatic tension into some of the image poems he wrote, and named these poems "image drama".
Book excerpts for trial reading
look for
I know at this moment,
You must be looking for me too.
The loneliness of the key,
Always as deep as a lock.
seabed
I said to a friend:
"Your heart is so clear."
And my heart is already cloudy—
No, that's just the bottom of the sea that I deliberately operated
It was also clear, but full of it
Aquatic weeds, carcasses, excrement, corals and reefs
Time also cast some on it
Shipwrecks, porcelain and gold coins
I have sharks in my heart
Sea
The night is like water
From the reef-like building complex
Walk among the trees swaying like water weeds
I kept putting up with it, putting up with it
Don't dare to open your mouth
Afraid of the crescent moon in the sky
Fish me up
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="136" > people lined up to wait for my arrival</h1>
People lined up to wait for me to come
They have their hands behind their backs
Hide the answer behind you
If I bring a smile of victory
They'll hold out a hand
Send me flowers in full bloom
If I hang my head sadly
Declare me a failure
They will raise their other hand
- in order to throw the stone in your hand
reply
The paper you sent was cold in autumn
I've pickled it
It sank in my drawer
Gradually into the taste