Although the history of outstanding poets is as bright as stars and there are countless excellent poems, it is an arduous task to truly write a masterpiece that will be applauded by the whole house and will be remembered forever. So how did some of the worst poetry in history survive?
China is a country with thousands of years of poetry tradition. The sages wrote many excellent poems, which are like treasures and still shine in the long river of history and have been passed down through the ages. Good poems have been passed down through the ages, and bad poems have also been passed down through the ages. The difference is that good poems spread because of the praise of future generations, while bad poems are treated as jokes, recorded in anecdotes, and become people's talk after dinner.
If you want to write a good poem, you must not only make the effort to read tens of thousands of books, but also have a pair of discerning eyes, a wise heart, an agile pen, and undergo a long period of training. Therefore, Jia Dao sighed: "It takes three years to get two sentences, and one chant brings tears to my eyes"; Lu Yanrang has the experience of "chanting a word 'an, twisting several stems and whiskers"; , the true experience of "I will never stop dying if I don't say anything shocking".
If you want to be an ambitious poet, without this arduous process, you will only get bad poems. People born in the 1980s who came to the Sifang Forum believed that instead of being able to win the reputation of "poetry hero" or "song hero", they would be ridiculed as "fabricated" and become notorious.
There is a phenomenon in history that few poems that praise virtues, brag and flatter horses have been handed down from generation to generation. Even some excellent poets, once they write flattery poems, are often of mediocre quality and laughable. Xie Jin was a great scholar and writer of the Ming Dynasty, and the editor-in-chief of "Yongle Dadian". He was one of the three great talents of the Ming Dynasty along with Yang Shen and Xu Wei. He was once Zhu Yuanzhang's most admired and trusted minister, and he rose to the rank of chief minister of the cabinet.
Once, Xie Jin accompanied Zhu Yuanzhang to fish in the Imperial Garden. Xie Jin caught a fish, but Zhu Yuanzhang caught nothing. When Xie Jin saw Zhu Yuanzhang's unhappy expression, he recited a "Fishing Poem": Several feet of silk fell into the water, and the golden hook was thrown away forever. No fish dared to face the emperor. Long live the king only fished for dragons. When Zhu Yuanzhang heard this, his worries turned into joy. However, Xie Jin's talent, reputation and personality were greatly damaged by this flattery poem.
The modern warlord Zhang Zongchang was known as the "Three Ignorants" general: he didn't know how many soldiers he had, he didn't know how much money his family had, and he didn't know how many concubines he had. Zhang Zongchang was born a bandit and had no ideas, but he was good at reciting poems. He even compiled a book called "Xiao Kun Poetry Notes" and gave it away to people everywhere.
His poem "Traveling to Mount Tai": From a distance, Mount Tai looks dark, thin at the top and thick at the bottom. It's like turning Mount Tai upside down. The lower part is thinner and the upper part is thicker.
"Da Ming Lake": Daming Lake, Ming Lake is big, there are lotuses in Daming Lake, and there are toads on the lotus, and they pop up when you poke them.
Zhang Boju, one of the four young masters of the Republic of China, once commented that Zhang Zongchang's poems were not free from the "Qiu Ba" habit, and regarded it as a joke. He recorded it in the collection of essays "Spring Outing Dreams" and spread it all over the world.
Shi Siming and An Lushan launched the "Anshi Rebellion" in the Tang Dynasty. After An Lushan's death, Shi Siming proclaimed himself Emperor of Yan, continued the rebellion, and led his army to the west. After the capture of Luoyang, it happened to be the cherry ripening season. As the saying goes: "Luoyang's cherries are the best in the world", Shi Siming asked people to pick fresh cherries, have fun with his group of defending generals, and drink and have fun.
While tasting the fresh cherries, Shi Siming suddenly missed his son, Prince Huai Shi Chaoyi. So, he arranged for a special person to work hard to deliver a basket of cherries to his son who was staying in Yanjing. He said half of it was for his son and half of it was for Prime Minister Zhou Zhi. He also wrote a "Cherry Poem" artfully on the spot: A basket of cherries, half green. Half is Huang, half is related to King Huai, and half is related to Zhou Zhi.
Although people around him praised the emperor for his talent, some people kindly reminded him that if the three and four sentences were reversed, the rhythm would fit. When Shi Siming heard this, he was very angry and said angrily: How can my son be inferior to Zhou Zhi?
After hearing this, everyone almost burst into laughter. However, although he loved his son deeply, his son was also ungrateful and later even launched a mutiny and killed his father. Shi Siming's clumsy "Cherry Poem" has been "passed down through the ages" along with this story.
During the Northern Song Dynasty, Shi Jie once wrote the poem "Three Heroes Send Poems to Du Mo Shixiong", praising the talents of Shi Yannian, Ouyang Xiu, and Du Mo (also known as Shixiong). He said that Shi Yannian was great at poetry. Ouyang Xiu is great at writing, and Du Mo is great at singing.
Shi Yannian and Ouyang Xiu are extremely talented and deserve the title of "Hao". Du Mo loved to write poetry, but his poetry was poor. Many of his poems did not meet the rules and often made jokes. As a result, later generations compared those who did not meet the standards to "fabrication", and "Du" refers to Du Mo.
Su Dongpo read Du Mo's "Poem of Farewell to the Six Sons of the Dao", which said: "Learn from the old dragon in the waves, the insect in front of the saint's door. Push down Yang Zhu and Mo Zhai, and raise up Zhongni and Zhou Gong." This kind of poetic talent was also listed by Shi Jie as one of the "three tycoons" in the literary world. Su Dongpo was deeply nauseated and couldn't help joking: I see Du Mo's arrogance. He is a scholar from the suburbs of Beijing. He drank private wine and ate. Miasmic beef, caused by drunkenness and satiation!
Su Dongpo also recorded this incident in "Dongpo Zhilin", which was widely circulated, and everyone who heard it laughed. Du Mo's poem, which has no charm and is just like boiled water, has also been "spread through the ages" with "Dongpo Zhilin".