Poetry is more powerful than jokes —— On Zeng Han's poem Villagers' Meeting

There used to be a joke at a meeting in the village: there was a village party secretary who loved meetings and would talk at every meeting, rambling and making no sense. From the international situation to the domestic general trend, from windy and rainy to long and short, it is plausible and unreasonable. It is said that there is a villager who always listens attentively when he speaks in the branch secretary. At first, he sat in the last row, listened for a while, then moved forward, and finally moved to the front row, with his elbows on the table and his cheeks in his hands. His expression is as focused as that of a child. Some villagers didn't understand, so they asked the villager: You must be very experienced if you listen so carefully. Can you tell us what you heard? The villager replied: I heard the branch secretary slap X.

The slang in the village is almost vulgar, but it is vivid, but X is innocent, because filming X is much more interesting than listening to the secretary's speech, but the people who do it just don't say it.

However, a joke is a joke after all, and there is no lack of ridicule. It is precisely because there are a lot of teasing ingredients that the power it contains will be invisible after laughing it off.

Poetry is different.

Recently, Zeng Han wrote a short poem called "Village Meeting", which also described the meeting in the village:

the villagers assembly

I really like this kind of party in the village.

Speech by branch secretary

The whole village is sleepy.

Only I can hear it.

You played it three times.

people-oriented

harvest of the year

I think

How's it going? Have you heard anything after reading this poem?

I think most people will, but I feel the understanding and harmonious heartbeat of the sacred unicorn. The beauty of poetry lies in what can be understood but cannot be expressed. Recently, there has been a heated discussion about the establishment and non-establishment of new poetry. In particular, the discussion of spoken poetry is rampant, and saliva can drown people, so that the discussion of spoken poetry finally converges into a torrent of saliva, which drowns many poems and poets.

Who first put forward the concept of oral poetry? There is no way to study it now, and there is no need to study it. The essence of the problem is that the investigation and orientation of the genre and style of poetry from ancient times to the present are done by later critics, and the writer of poetry never considers what genre and style he is before writing poetry, because this problem is a false proposition for writers. Classifying works and wearing hats is precisely the foundation of critics. What do you want them to do if they don't?

Works are the head, comments are the hat. This is their relationship.

Qin and Han dynasties were vigorous and powerful, so there were 300 poems, Yuefu and Gexing. Tang and Song Dynasties were romantic, so there were poems and rhymes. The Yuan and Ming dynasties became more and more secular, so there were songs and stories. Nowadays, the boundary between spoken and written language is becoming more and more blurred. In the eyes of ordinary people, written language seems to be more advanced and official, while spoken language is more grassroots and more folk. The mainstream position of network culture is becoming more and more obvious, and the impact on the boundary between spoken and written language is becoming more and more obvious, so the boundary between written and spoken language is also disappearing. From the index finger to Sha Yi, it is a road from elegant spoken language to popular spoken language.

For example, the word "people-oriented" in Zeng Han's poems is used in poetry. Do you think it is written or oral?

Some people say that this poem is not worth mentioning at all, and it has no value for reading and discussing. This statement is somewhat arbitrary. Because new poetry has just started, just like a toddler, it is too early to discuss whether his future growth has a future. There is a saying that although the combination of spoken language and written language is infinite, the combination of specific forms of spoken language and written language is limited. This statement makes sense. Otherwise, why do Yuefu, after reaching a certain height, vanish in the future, and Tang poetry comes out, while generations of poets in the Tang poetry world are striving for innovation and change? Because his predecessors have written a certain style, he can't write any more, so there are so many resources, and when it's over, it's over. Therefore, after the peak of Tang poetry, there are Song Ci, Yuan Qu and vernacular novels. The emergence of new poetry is precisely seeking novelty and change, because there is no way out, so we can only find another way.

If someone insists that Tang poetry and Song poetry are still alive, then I have to say that it is a commemorative life, and those who are still stubbornly writing metrical poems are just a kind of commemorative writing with paper sparks.

The writing of new poetry has just begun, and it is the writing of new students. Because of new students, it is inevitable to be naive, and it is precisely because of childishness that there are many possibilities for infinite growth. Critics of new poetry mainly think that it has no threshold and no norms, so there is no effective communication bridge between writing and reading. Actually, it's not. Some people only see new words and don't see the following poems. Because new poetry still inherits one of the biggest and most fundamental characteristics of this genre of poetry: expressing powerful emotions and thinking in an implicit way. However, there are more "poems" and fewer "songs" in new poetry.

Grassroots organizations are lax, their leaders are aging, and their thoughts are backward. When these quite official and written expressions are translated into poetry, it becomes three times to read "people-oriented" as "I think". Which of these two expressions is more vivid and powerful? Poetry is a nuclear bomb. Its advantage and strength lies not in its size, but in the impact and destructive power of the energy it carries. In this respect, Zeng Han's poems have done it.

Some people totally deny the spoken poetry in the new poetry, but they just see some immature works and kill themselves with one shot.

"Lao Wang and Tang Yan flew into the homes of ordinary people." Two sentences clearly expressed the feelings of family decline, personnel changes and vicissitudes of the world between the Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties and the Tang Dynasty. Unofficial history, the official history of that era, is full of articles, but this does not affect the recitation and status of these two poems, which is the power of poetry.

Style, genre, classic, no one can draw a conclusion by their own strength. Only time can put a hat on a work. I hope that oral poetry, or any other poetry, can be less "people-oriented" cry and more "I think" reflection and tempering.