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Headline Contest (Season 16) Jiang: Transcendence of Local Writing —— Preface of Poetry Collection Snow Falls on the Wall Village

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Chongqing Evening News

2022- 12-09 10:30

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Transcendence in Local Writing

-preface to Hu Zhonghua's poetry collection "Snow Falling on the Wall Village"

Jiang

Hu Zhonghua is a poet that I always pay attention to and often criticize.

There are many reasons to pay attention to him. I live in Beibei, a neighbor from Hechuan, where China is located. He lives at the intersection of Qujiang, Fujiang and Jiangling. I live in the lower reaches of Jialing River, sharing water. When I was in college, I often passed by Hechuan by car, and later I often drove. Because of family, friendship and interest in Hechuan history and culture, I have been to Hechuan many times. I know several Hechuan poets, such as Zhao, Dachuang, Li, Anka and so on. Each of them has his own characteristics, and the same characteristic is that he loves his hometown deeply.

I often criticize Hu Zhonghua. Of course, it's a bit excessive. In fact, it's a concern among friends. China has been writing poems for a long time and has a good sense of poetry. I once said in a short article that he is a young "old poet", but I always feel that his talent has not been well played and he has written too little. Actually, I'm ambivalent sometimes. I often complain about writers who write and repeat every day. However, some poets write too little, so I am anxious for them. China's work is mainly too busy, and sometimes he feels more and more lost, as if he has not found the ideal development direction. I "criticize" him because some things may be put aside and pushed for a while. Unfortunately, we should spend more time pondering our favorite poems, studying texts and thinking about history. Talents can't be preserved for a long time. After a certain age, even if you don't use it, a person's sensibility and expressiveness will naturally decline. It has been more than ten years since his poetry collection Spring Night was published. Ten years, what a precious time at his age! Fortunately, he persisted and gradually found his own characteristics and direction, which is worth being happy for him.

There are many poets in Chongqing, and a large number of post-70 s poets have gradually stepped onto the poetic scene, having their own poetic path and characteristics, and some have won national awards. Hu Zhonghua is also born after 70. His potential lies in his dreams. As can be seen from the book Snow Falls on the Wall Village, he has kept up. "Tuqiang Village" is the hometown of Hu Zhonghua. He was born and raised there, and then he left, so he turned around. This process is very complicated. China is both a participant and a bystander, but there is only one clue, that is, the life, culture and spiritual connection between the poet and his hometown.

I searched the internet, and there are at least dozens of places called Tuqiang Village in China. This common and even rustic name is largely the intangible heritage of China's traditional farming culture and rural life. The Tuqiang Village in Hechuan is located in Tuchang Town, which is "soil" plus "soil". It used to be very remote, right next to Beibei where I live. Now the traffic is very convenient. I haven't studied the history and culture of Tuqiang Village, but I believe that no matter what the meaning of this name and the culture it represents, it is the place where I grew up and left a deep mark in my life. In recent years, China has been saying that he is searching and groping. I guess the breakthrough he finally found is here, the place where his life originated, the once remote place that is undergoing great changes now, the place on the edge of the city that is still beautiful, and the place where his relatives have been buried or still live.

Rural description is an ordinary and often new theme in the history of modern poetry, and even a poet community similar to "local poetry" has appeared. Only in different periods, the connotation and ways of rural expression are different, even among poets of different times. China belongs to the kind of person who was born in the countryside and later went to the city. Most of the cultures they accepted in their childhood came from Shan Ye and rural areas, with nature and family as the center. After arriving in the city, although the environment, lifestyle and mentality have changed, his rural experience and his memory of the countryside will not change, and it has become the background of his life. Therefore, one of the best ways for him to express his life is to respect his own cultural genes and constantly look at the influence and changes of this gene in life, reality and emotion from a unique perspective. Therefore, there are some differences between his rural description and what is usually called "local poetry".

Hu Zhonghua divided his poetry collection into several parts: Tuqiang Village, small ballads, small families, new workshops, Taohua Mountain, Qingzhuxi and Xiaoai. There are not many works in each part, and the earth wall village is the background color of the whole poetry collection. The tuqiang village at the beginning of the poetry collection is the foothold and starting point for the poet to describe his native land, and describes the villages he knows from different angles. He wrote about the external form of the village:

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The houses in the village are all fenced with earth walls.

Every yard is surrounded by fences and earth walls.

Pink Li Bai, surrounded by earth walls.

Pigs, cows, sheep and chickens are surrounded by earth walls.

Ploughs, hoes, sickles and baskets are surrounded by earth walls.

Three meals a day, weddings and funerals, ups and downs.

Surrounded by earth walls

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This is a typical rural scene, especially in the hilly areas of Chongqing, where houses, plants, livestock, poultry and farm tools constitute a typical "home" image. But if there are only these appearances, that is the task of prose. The poet feels that "three meals a day, weddings and funerals, ups and downs/surrounded by earth walls". This imprint is reflected in the poet's mind, which is poetry and the essence of the village. A village in the sense of poetry is a place where people live, where people are sad and happy, and where there is culture and emotion.

In this poem, the poet also wrote about the villages he felt at different times and seasons:

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At dawn, the rising sun in Tuqiang Village looks like a big orange.

Let the earth wall village shine with gold.

In the morning, a foreigner came to the lock of Tuqiang Village.

She wanted to eavesdrop on my love words.

When you listen, all you hear is

A proverbial bark

In the afternoon, I sat in the yard of the new workshop in Tuqiang Village.

Sophora japonica, you can't sit still

Start walking with shadows and work slowly like a mother.

And at dusk, let the earth wall change color, secretly surprised.

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In spring, you don't want to blossom in Tuqiang Village.

Tuqiang village will never agree.

I don't want to sing like a cicada in summer. It's not good.

Tuqiang village will complain that I am lonely

In autumn, my sister-in-law's breasts are more prominent.

Tuqiang village understands that all the milk is sent by the moon.

In winter, the snow here will burn and people will be brighter.

Tuqiang village knows what is boiling and what is shining.

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This is the poet's further refinement of the life in Tuqiang village, where there are mothers, outsiders and sisters-in-law; There are even changes here in the morning and evening, and the cycle is repeated throughout the year, which not only writes the characteristics of farming civilization, but also makes us feel the poet's meticulous experience of his hometown. Moreover, the poet used a variety of artistic means to integrate his emotions into it, such as "When you listen to your ears, all you hear is the proverbial dog barking", which is a very special metaphor. Proverbs are very popular in rural areas, and even dogs bark like proverbs. What a unique expression; "In spring, you don't want to blossom in Tuqiang Village/Tuqiang Village will never agree." Tuqiang village has become the main body to control life and vitality, not just an external existence ... the transformation of angles, the transposition of roles and the integration of inside and outside make the village live and stand up in words.

It can be seen that China's love for his hometown is integrated into his bones and into his life. All his poems about hometown, homeland, country, life, dreams and so on are out of this love. He wrote about the daily life and worldly wisdom of Tuqiang village, as well as the dreams and pursuits of Tuqiang village people, covering many subjects, including environment, production, life and scenery, and building a variety of rural landscapes. "The Poet of Tuqiang Village" reveals the poet's unique experience and emotional cognition of this land: "I am an old house poet in Tuqiang Village/my body is old, my soul is new/my mind is tender like a green leaf", which reveals the poet's mood at the beginning. In the old atmosphere, "my soul is new" and "my thoughts are as gentle as green leaves", and memories, nostalgia and dreams flow between the lines. "I wrote a poem on the old wooden table/the sky covered the paper, and the flying flowers floated in/fell on the paper along the window, forming a beautiful sentence. //I add shades to a word/water between two words/warblers on the edge of an exclamation point/surprise her. " Everything in the hometown grows and sublimates in the poet's mind, and then it is full of emotion and smart language to construct a sense of freshness. At the end of the first album, there was a poem "Tuqiang Village", but the poet expressed another feeling. "Tuqiang Village" has become a place constantly impacted by modern civilization, and even its name has changed or even disappeared. "From Tuqiang Village to Lin Jing Village and then to Liu Yang Village/Every time you retreat, or don't retreat, you are forgotten or despised/Tuqiang is because you are small/close to the hillside. You are getting bigger and bigger/you are getting smaller and smaller in the eyes of others/you have to retreat to a corner of my heart/slowly hide. " The hometown, which is constantly replaced because of its smallness, has become a pain in the poet's heart and can only be hidden in "a corner of my heart" in the end. For social change, this change is really nothing, but in a delicate poet, every little change may be a root fracture, which is the helplessness of life. Therefore, the poet wrote:

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I want to cry in Tuqiang Village.

I just want you to be a village where the wind blows through bamboo forests.

As long as you are a village surrounded by clear springs and streams.

As long as you are a village with moonlight as silver and sunshine as gold.

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Last night, I had a dream, my Tuqiang village.

On the highway moving like a python.

On the earth wall of the collapsed ruins

Wild vines and weeds

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From memory, dream to loss, and then to "want to cry without tears", it contains the changes of the times, the break between memory and reality, and the distance between emotion and dream, full of surprises, entanglements and helplessness.

This change is irresistible to individuals. But the poet is different from others. He can restore and preserve these disappearing beauty through poetry. Therefore, in his poems, Hu Zhonghua's description of Tuqiang Village almost comes from memory. The distance between memory and reality brings great changes to the poet, emotional entanglements and thoughts on life and destiny rooted in the soil. "Small Ballad" is a reflection on some unique cultural and ecological phenomena in rural memory. Some have disappeared and some are disappearing, but after entering the poem, they will all become poets and become our permanent memory and spiritual nutrition. "Little Relatives" is about the imprint of mother and other relatives on the poet's mind. The poet's life and fate are related to these relatives, who are the root of the poet's nostalgia for his hometown. There is a line in "Mother in Sit-in": "Behind it is a stream with Ding Dong spring/in front of it is a field with frogs/there is a little moonlight/a path in her dream, and she came home with mud/several generations were in a bumpy place/why did she disappear as soon as she left?" The environment is still so quiet, but the final questioning makes people feel heavy, which may be the passage of time. Time is cruel, but time is also fair; Change is inevitable, but any change that falls on a specific person may be extremely painful! The series of New Workshop, Peach Blossom Mountain and Green Bamboo Creek still take Tuqiang Village as the center, nature, scenery and villages as the main line, vicissitudes as the theme, and poets' memories and homesickness as the means to express their deep affection for their homeland. There is a line in "Speaking of One Day": "One drop, two drops, the crisp birdsong,/knocked my distant memory off the wire. /Speaking of that day, a lot of words like rice grains flooded me, and an underground river surrounded me. /Speaking of that day, dawn is coming and dusk is coming. " What's the feeling of dawn and dusk coming at the same time? The meaning of "one day" is not exact, but it may be every day. This is not a simple emotion, but a complex and diverse life experience. In these works, the poet's memories of hazy love are so pure, so helpless and so beautiful. The object of his memory may be a woman who is on cloud nine, or two small conjectures that have long gone away, but I prefer to broaden my horizons. The poet describes the countryside in his memory, including people, and the eternal memory in his heart.

Reading these poems with true feelings and deep feelings, I suddenly felt a sense of substitution, as if I were experiencing the same emotional experience and mental suffering as a poet. From subject matter to writing, these works mainly focus on a kind of local experience and personal experience, but these experiences are not closed. Instead, it opens many channels for people who have similar experiences and feelings with poets with unique poetic feelings, so that the works have obvious personal characteristics and unique transcendence: beyond themselves and beyond places!

After reading this book of poems, I deeply feel that Hu Zhonghua is not a narrow-minded poet, not a poet who only lives in his own heart, and not a poet who only cares about himself and ignores others. He always keeps in touch with the outside world. At the end of "The Village of the Earth Wall", the poet wrote:

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Oh, Tuqiang village

Not only in Chongqing, Hechuan District, but also on the west side of Tuchang Town.

East of Taohua Mountain, still there.

Shaanxi, Shanxi, Hebei, Henan

Still thinking about the past and homesickness

Nostalgia, reunion, separation, joy, pain

That's when I met myself.

Because of Tuqiang Village, because of love.

Look up and stare at the roof of every earthen wall yard.

Soul, sparkling

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The "Earth Wall Village" is real, but it is only a point for the poet to think about rural changes and personal destiny, and this "point" is scattered in many places in China, and even in all China villages, there are images and figures of "Earth Wall Village". The poet expressed his personal destiny, feelings and complicated inner changes through his own "earth village", and also expressed the feelings and destiny of China Village and China people from the same situation, and wrote "homesickness, reunion, dispersion, joy and pain" of people, thus writing "soul, sparkle", "little love" and many people with his personal pen.

Hu Zhonghua's book of poems is about the countryside, but the poet is not obsessed with the traditional farming civilization. After all, it has become history, or it is becoming history, but it is just expressing one's life course and love. The countryside is the most suitable support he found. The nature and culture of the countryside can make people feel prosperous, but the poet is not just obsessed with mountains and rivers, but finds his true self there, at least his former self. The land where the poet stands is the place that supports our growth, but his dreams, emotions and spirit are not bound by the small earthen wall village, but spread far away. Poets write more memories than losses, but isn't this a gain for poetry? The poet left us a beautiful past according to his own discoveries and feelings. This kind of acquisition is rich, profound and artistic, which is irreplaceable by pure material existence.

Different from most pastoral poems, Hu Zhonghua's emotional orientation deserves our attention. "Small" is the most distinctive cut-in angle of this collection of poems. The poet wrote about a small village, expressing a little emotion, a little pain and a little love. These elements and discoveries are unique because of local and cultural participation. However, his characteristics are that he can see the big from the small, from the small and the big, and from me and people. His life and transitivity make his exploration realistic and refuse to rely too much on things. "Things" are only the external support of these works, and "I" is always the spiritual source of these works. For hometown and land, the poet does not praise or criticize blindly, but conforms to the inner real experience, casts, refines and sublimates what he has seen, experienced and thought from the heart, excavates its beauty, seeks a unique spirit, and blends tradition and modernity, memory and reality, individual and world, material and spirit together well, so that reality and reality coexist and blend inside and outside.

"Snow on the Wall Village" makes Hu Zhonghua's poetry mature. He has his own field of observation, his own way of speaking, his own unique style and irreplaceable artistic discoveries. Although I once "criticized" him, I think his gains have little to do with this criticism, but because his own life experience, knowledge reserve and artistic accomplishment have gradually reached a new height. In poetry creation, the poet's theme is always decisive. Based on this, I am full of expectations and blessings for Hu Zhonghua's future poetry exploration.

65438+2022120 October, severe cold, grass in Yubei.

(About the author: Jiang Dengke, doctor of literature, member of Chinese Writers Association, professor and doctoral supervisor of China New Poetry College of Southwest University, vice president of Southwest University Press, and concurrently vice president of Chongqing Writers Association)

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Editor: Luo Yuxin

Editor: Chen Taiyong

Audit: Wang Cheng

Editor Luo Yuxin

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