Fortunately, I edited Yu Xiuhua's poems in cooperation with several other editors, which enabled me to concentrate on reading more than 100 poems by Yu Xiuhua. In the process of editing, that is, in the process of close reading, there are many tears in my eyes, which are the language, feelings and thoughts of Yu Xiuhua's poems. I followed her poems to the pure sky, the empty rural scenery, the deep desire and the uncontrollable passion. I sat in front of the computer, quiet and full of emotion.
Frankly speaking, this is a rare experience of reading poetry in my life. This experience is so direct that I have to stop and reflect on my reading process. I think it was my reading experience that made thousands of people fall in love with Yu Xiuhua's poems at once. Yu Xiuhua's poems became popular in an instant, not because of anyone's praise or recommendation, not because of the critical vision of Liu Nian, editor-in-chief of Poetry magazine, nor because of the enthusiastic recommendation of Shen Rui, an overseas professor, but because of the reading experience and direct reading experience of countless readers, who felt the power of Yu Xiuhua's poems, but could not restrain their inner surge.
I have the same reading experience as others: Yu Xiuhua's poems have directly impacted me, but these poems are by no means artificial. They have impacted the readers with the power of language, emotion and depth of thought, and the readers are moved and applauded. Reader response is the center of the academic research of "Reader Response School", which is not the topic discussed in this paper. I will analyze the art of Yu Xiuhua's poetry from this point of view, and reiterate that the power of poetry art first acts on our feelings, not our thoughts. Art is something that acts on intuition, not kudingcha that has been tasted for a long time.
My discussion on the overall value of Yu Xiuhua's poems has been expressed in my articles "Yu Xiuhua, a poet who kept me awake at night" and "Yu Xiuhua: Women and Poets". In this article, I will make a purely technical analysis, take a poem as an example, discuss the art of Yu Xiuhua's poetry, and explore what constitutes a good poem.
The power of language: surprise and tension
Let me start with an American poet. What is a good poem? Stephen Dunn 1939-), an American poet, is a famous contemporary American poet. 200 1 won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his collection of poems "Different Time". He is also the winner of the American Academy of Arts and Humanities Literature Award. He published 2 1 book of poems, and he is an outstanding poet with rich experience. He wrote an article called "Good Poetry and Not-so-good Poetry" to talk about what a good poem is. When talking about good poetic language, he said: "A good poem keeps a delicate balance between strangeness and familiarity, and the poet must create the familiar into something quite strange, so that readers can watch it again or feel it again."
Stephen Burton emphasized that the language of poetry should make familiar things strange, and make readers feel that the familiar language is surprised by strangeness, because the language suddenly becomes wonderful, the language becomes strange, and ordinary things become refreshing, so that readers can feel, experience and discover again. Reading every poem of Yu Xiuhua, we can find this feature, that is, the language is magical, that is, an ordinary poem describing daily life, and her language can turn stale into magical, such as:
Forever young
White is a disaster, incense is a disaster.
Those hidden sounds are pushed out layer by layer, piled up layer by layer, and then dispersed.
Yes, there's nothing to say. White is not a color. But a gesture.
Every year comes as scheduled: existence is expression.
It's gorgeous anyway, it's coming anyway.
Anyway, it is the kind of loneliness that fades away slowly: dazzling loneliness, ruthless loneliness.
Where did those spewing forces come from? It disdains moonlight.
It's always on. Yes, it's on itself.
It hurts so much that I can't scream.
A fire spread upward from its roots and water fell from a leaf.
Everything looks white.
Irresistible white, die to live white.
This poem describes the feelings and thoughts about white gardenia, both from the title and literally. The poet saw the white gardenia blooming all over the sky, and its fragrance was overflowing. In the first poem, she used words that we don't usually use to describe the rich feeling of white gardenia: "White is a disaster, and fragrance is a disaster." Generally speaking, "catastrophe" has nothing to do with flowers. The poet put these words together, creating a strange but very accurate feeling for you to see again-gardenias are shocking and irresistible, as if they were destroyed, and "catastrophe" and "disaster" are destructive.
The second line depicts the flowering process of gardenia: "Those hidden sounds are pushed out layer by layer, piled up layer by layer, and then dispersed"-the poet turned the flowering process into sound, vision into sound, and irrelevant into relevance. The petals surrounded by flowers rolled in like a sound, and she used the verb "push out, pile up, and then spread out"-these three verbs describe the blooming of gardenias layer by layer.
The third line: "Yes, there is nothing to say." The poet appeared. She sighed. She was shocked by the life in the flowering process. She tried to understand the color of flowers: "White is not a color. This is a gesture. " Gardenia blossoms-a dynamic process that has become the theme of life. The word "posture" expresses the poet's understanding of the flowering process. The four-line poem in the first section above describes and expresses the feelings and thoughts of Gardenia from three sensory poets: vision, smell and hearing, and the choice of words is very unique.
This is the real poetic language: the ordinary blooming of gardenia suddenly turned into a grand gathering of gorgeous language of various feelings. In the last sentence, the poet turned to summarize the significance of flowering, paving the way for the next poetry festival.
In the last section, the poet once again described the whiteness of gardenia: fire, water and "outer eyes". "External eye", the perspective has changed, and the perspective has changed from a poet to a gardenia. Look at the outside world, it's white inside and out. The poet said: "These are all white/unstoppable whites, and it is useless to die." The last word "to be dead or alive" simply fell from the sky, and there is no doubt that it came to an abrupt end. Just like the string was snapped, the existence of the vitality of death or life is simply irresistible.
In addition, the voice of the language of this poem is also very distinctive. This poem takes the word "white" as the center, and there are words with "ai" as the vowel in several lines, such as: difficult, open, state, and coming. These rhyming words constitute the musicality of this poem. When reading aloud, this poem actually rhymes irregularly, and the sense of rhythm makes this poem have both internal language relations and musicality.
The language of this poem seems simple, but the strength and tension between words are quite profound, and the images created by words are wonderful and unexpected. In fact, the language of a good poem must be wonderful, and the choice of words, word order and tone of each word must be integrated into an organic connection, and the images and images created by these words must also be organically connected and have internal logic, and they must never be irrelevant; On the contrary, bad poetry means that there is no internal connection between images. When reading, the reader can't see the internal connection. For example, in A Mist, Yu Xiuhua's poetry is simple in language, colorful in imagery, unique and clear. Her language and imagination are innate, like a meteor shower falling from the sky, natural and beautiful.