-Reading Notes of Selected Poems of Mu Xin
When we talk about Mu Xin's poems, we will naturally mention this short poem "Once Slow". The way of writing, in a calm tone, expresses the profound meaning of the ordinary, which is very tasteful of chewing green olives. This is why I am interested in reading Selected Poems of Mu Xin.
But reading this book of poems, my feeling is not as novel as when I first read Slow. In fact, there are few enduring poems like Once Slow in this book. In my opinion, many poems read more like Mu Xin's diaries and essays. For example, the sentence in Paris-Frankfurt says, "The train leaves at eleven o'clock in the evening/arrives at the port at eight o'clock the next day/do you want dessert/how about breakfast tomorrow/fried eggs on both sides/what juice/bread/ham?" Like these colloquial sentences, I wonder, can this be regarded as poetry?
There is also a sentence in Wudao Evening News: "I am so tired/forgot to be tired/stingy/give back all the way/worry/smile at the lamp." I think it would be more appropriate to write such words in my diary or in my thoughts. But I don't understand, is this the last wish of Mu Xin, or the last wish of his student Chen Danqing or the editors of the publishing house? However, no matter what the truth is, if readers are expected to appreciate these words as poems, it will really damage the reputation of writer Mu Xin.
Of course, I am not limited to these two short poems. Let's read the example in the long poem "The Spirit of a Summer Night": "Tweed men's shirts in the window of Princeton Street/although they were gray purple forty years ago and sixty years ago/patch pocket's thread bags, narrow collars, wide collars, one fork, two forks, two buttons and three buttons/although they are inseparable, they are stiff and revived/they are undoubtedly smarter, more outdated and less durable."
But my feelings mainly come from Mu Xin's long poems, such as Renaming St. Petersburg, The Spirit of a Summer Night, Wandering in the Last Days, Yin Temple in Tokyo, Baron, and A Journey to Chile. And some puzzling poems, such as Bronze Robe, Play, Ruan Zhi and Her. Frankly speaking, if I only read two kinds of Mu Xin's poems, I really doubt whether Mu Xin has the talent to write poems. Fortunately, it is gratifying that in this Selected Poems of Mu Xin, most of the short and pithy works written by poets are short poems with profound meaning. For example, "Nongjiale": "Nongjiale/hardly speaks/has guests/suddenly makes a scene/everyone talks at the same time/says the same thing." This poem seems unpretentious, but the meaning in the sentence is very profound and extensive. It can be said that people with different experiences will have different feelings.
Let's enjoy the poem in Point again: "The Woods in summer/the bird/the barking is fierce/what happened/in the afternoon/a strange bird/the cry among the leaves/what big event is coming/nothing/nothing/it has flown away/silence has become a fallacy". The image of this poem is very similar to carl sandburg's Fog, "Fog is coming/stepping on the cat's thin steps/. The images of the two poems are abstract, but the artistic conception of the poems can be freely interpreted with the reader's imagination. You can think this way or that way, the artistic conception can be deep or shallow, and the image can be big or small. I like Mu Xin, a poem with image characteristics.
I suspect that writers who have lived in the United States for a long time, such as Mu Xin, are always influenced by modernist poets, such as carl sandburg, Longfellow, William and Frost. Perhaps this is why when I read Selected Poems of Mu Xin, I am sometimes moved by the profundity of Mu Xin's thoughts, such as Slow Once upon a time, Lost Breath, Spots, Horse Racing in a Dream, sawdust as a song, JJ and so on, and sometimes I am disappointed with Mu Xin's obscure poems, just like those long poems I mentioned earlier.
I made statistics on Mu Xin's poetry anthology. Many of the 169 long and short poems compiled in this book are classics, but quite a few of them are unsuccessful. Especially those long narrative poems, as well as the ancient' four-character poems', I feel that it is better to rewrite this into prose. In my impression, the most successful part of Mu Xin's works is his prose, or it can be called thought notes. This can be confirmed by his essays, such as Jumeika Essays, Journey Following Footsteps, and Impromptu Judgment.
After reading these articles by Mu Xin, I can generally infer that Mu Xin is a knowledgeable and talented scholar writer. Scholar writers' articles are often characterized by wide knowledge, deep philosophical thinking and meticulous analysis of things. However, this writing style of restraining emotions and thinking calmly is completely different from the passionate romantic poetry creation mode. This is like the difference between bacon and Shelley, Lu Xun and Xu Zhimo. From this, we can understand why the works in Selected Poems of Mu Xin are equal in quality.
Therefore, it is ideal to read Mu Xin's articles, not poems. If you want to read Mu Xin's poems, then I suggest reading his wise short poems instead of long poems or' four-character poems'. If you do this, you can reap the joy of expectation.
My book review feels contradictory. When it comes to Mu Xin's poems, do I appreciate them or vice versa? This question is hard to say. In fact, reading articles and writing book reviews sometimes reflect a lot of ambivalence. It's like a familiar friend, you know his advantages and disadvantages, so sometimes you will appreciate him, and sometimes you will dislike him. Can you absolutely say whether such friends are good or bad? Of course not. In fact, when writing this book review, my mixed feelings are so much.