As a controversial writing type, Shen Haobo's poetry is related to people's attitude towards oral poetry. In the history of new poetry, especially in the process of contemporary poetry, the relationship between poetry and spoken language is a controversial issue in our reading response to poetry. People who belittle Shen Haobo think that his writing represents the worst relationship between oral English and poetry. But in my opinion, judging a poet's creation by his relationship with his spoken language is precisely the worst point in our concept of new poetry. People often make two mistakes. One is to type the rich relationship between spoken language and poetry, classify it as "spoken poetry" from the poetic phenomenon, and then devalue its artistic value in style. The second is to demonize the actual relationship between spoken English and new poetry. Poetry written in Chinese seems to have an essence, but oral English writing can't provide a profound poetry for the essence of this so-called poem. But in my opinion, in the practice of new poetry and contemporary poetry, the poet's use of spoken language is not a question of typology or stylization, but a question involving the basic features of our mother tongue. In this respect, Shen Haobo's poetry collection "Command Me to Silence" can at least give us an opportunity to re-examine the relationship between oral English and poetry in the writing of new poetry.
In the history of new poetry in the past, many people wrote poems in spoken language, and there was considerable progress. However, limited by the times and personal accomplishment, oral English, whether as a poetry resource or as a writing resource, is basically limited by stylistic problems and stylistic awareness. Turning to reading poetry becomes whether oral English can bring enough poetry. In other words, it becomes a question of appreciation. Throughout Shen Haobo's writing, we may gradually realize that the use of spoken language by contemporary poets is actually related to a fundamental language consciousness in modern poetry writing. In the poetry collection Command Me to Silence, Shen Haobo's use of spoken language not only has stylistic considerations, but in my opinion, the more important feature is that his use of spoken language actually activates the physical connection between spoken language and language. Before Shen Haobo, other poets tried more or less, but never concentrated on strengthening the practice of this kind of poetry with a highly conscious language attitude like Shen Haobo. From this point of view, Shen Haobo's writing on poetry disputes will pay a greater price than many contemporary poets.
Another misunderstanding related to oral English is that Shen Haobo's writing lacks the necessary difficulty. In fact, it is by no means like this. Shen Haobo's poems are by no means without difficulty or skill. I even think that Shen Haobo's writing pays more attention to technology than I do in many aspects, or emphasizes the skills of poetry. For example, the second series of his long poem Butterfly, such as his short poems Churchyard and Linglong Pagoda. Without skill and a deep sense of skill, you can't write it at all. Even if I barely write, my language seems to be out of breath. So, sometimes, don't be naive when you see a poet say that he hates technology. Writing poetry really doesn't require skill. After reading this book of poems by Hao Bo, people may realize that there is a great technology active in Shen Haobo's writing. His poem, in Beijing dialect, is that there is a big job in it. In other words, by strengthening the relationship between oral English and poetry into positive language awareness, he showed unique confidence in controlling the mood and rhythm of poetry.
Shen Haobo is good at coordinating the language relationship between emotion and rhythm in poetry. His poetry stems not only from a poet's emotional brewing when dealing with the theme of poetry, but also from his high sensitivity to the rhythm of poetry. Generally speaking, in the poet's organization of language, the artistic conception of poetry often ends with the poet's preference for the theme and judgment of the poetic intention. But in Shen Haobo's poems, the artistic conception he captured is not only the poet's artistic conception, but also the artistic conception of a language. In many of his poems, the artistic conception of language has surpassed the poet's artistic conception even in the value of poetry, showing an independent aesthetic.
The use of spoken language, as well as its related sense of language and rhythm, is only one aspect of Shen Haobo's poetry creation. On the other hand, what is less obvious is the language consciousness and poetic spirit in the language position of this kind of poetry. Only being sensitive to the type between spoken language and language sense is not enough to make the poet's writing present a poetic atmosphere. In my opinion, the success of Shen Haobo's poems, including Sha Yi's, lies in renewing and deepening the connection between spoken language and language sense in modern Chinese poetry writing. Their writing transcends spoken language, and with the help of poetry's use of spoken language, it promotes the pursuit of life language in modern poetry writing. For poetry, spoken language essentially indicates a great imagination of the language of life. On the other hand, the use of spoken language in poetry also helps to keep the poetry language clean and concise from the style level. In these respects, Shen Haobo, as a poet, showed his keen and amazing talent different from other peers.
Command me to be silent and the reading and criticism around it may inspire us to think about the fate relationship between oral English and poetry. Oral writing is not only a poetic phenomenon, but also involves the remolding of our language spirit, which is essentially a cultural issue. Both the writing of new poetry and contemporary poetry love and hate oral English. On the one hand, I want to find new vitality, new consciousness, new vision, new expression, new way and new spirit from the relationship between poetry and spoken language; On the other hand, I am afraid of the subversion of oral English as a writing culture. Once in trouble, dress up spoken English as a scapegoat for poetry and attack it. From the perspective of the history of poetry, Shen Haobo's writing may help the poetic circles to realize that the relationship between China's modern poetry and spoken language is not only complicated, but also profound. Because in China's previous poetry writing, spoken language was regarded as auxiliary, as if the spoken language of poetry was an additional language component. In fact, the use of spoken language, as well as its related language position and language consciousness, involves a core aesthetic value of modern poetry writing. China's poetry has traditionally attached importance to suggestibility, so it is very developed in the accumulation of images and implications. However, as far as the directness of language is concerned, we have to say that China's poetry writing is seriously lacking in practice. Our poetry culture also doesn't trust the directness of language. Actually, it's good to say that you don't trust. The more serious problem is probably not distrust, but a lack of literary ability and a lack of trust. I mentioned earlier that Hao Bo's writing is more controversial than many contemporary poets, that's what I meant.
In our field of poetry, it is easy to know whether oral English is good or not. But it is difficult and strange that seeing the good does not give people a kind of trust in the spirit of language. In Shen Haobo's writing, we see something new, which not only fully trusts the relationship between poetry and oral English in style, but also deepens this trust into a self-sufficient aesthetic in the spirit of language. Therefore, we see a rare relaxation in Shen Haobo's works. This relaxation makes his poems look full of images and rhythms, but it also shows an inherent rigor in syntactic consciousness. There is a great technique in the poem about Haobo, which means this. There is another great technology in poetry writing, that is, if a poet does not have the courage of language and the language atmosphere in his heart, his language cannot present such a face. Western literary theory likes empty talk, and its skills come from observing and judging the subject matter. From this perspective, we might as well say that Shen Haobo's writing shows that for poetry, language skills come from the poet's courage in language.