Chapter 113 The Broad Road to the Development of New Poetry——Study "A Letter from Chairman Mao to Comrade Chen Yi on Poetry"

Today I am speaking as a poetry lover.After reading "Chairman Mao's Letter to Comrade Chen Yi on Poetry", I was extremely excited!I re-read the chairman's letter to the editorial department of "Poetry Magazine" on January 12, 1957.I feel that Chairman Mao has pointed out a broad road for the development of new poetry and for those who study poetry, especially young people.That is to say: "Of course, new poems should be the main body of poetry, and some old poems can be written, but it should not be advocated among young people, because this genre constrains thinking and is not easy to learn." He also said: "There are some good folk songs. The future trend , it is likely to absorb nourishment and form from folk songs and develop into a new set of poetry that will appeal to a wide audience.”

Over the years, some young people in the neighborhood have written some poems for me to read and correct for them (of course not because I am a poet, but because I live nearby and do some creation).I always quote Chairman Mao's teaching: "Of course, poetry should be based on new poetry..." Because young people are rich in emotion, they also have feelings when they write poetry, but what they write has no "poetic flavor" or "characteristics" ", and it is also not in line with what the chairman said: new poems should be "succinct, roughly neat, and rhyming."Today's young people generally have not learned the forms and rules of old poetry, such as rhyming.Just because young people don't understand mediocrity and can't rhyme, their poems are hard to pronounce, and even more difficult to remember after reading.

Also, there are still some young people who use Ci Pai to write "poems", and because they have not studied Ci, even if they wrote some "Die Lian Hua", "Qing Ping Le" and "Lang Tao Sha" It is a kind of "poetry", but except for the same number of words in each sentence, it is the same as the word without any "characteristics". This is exactly what Chairman Mao said: "Because this genre restricts thinking and is not easy to learn." The evolution of poetry originally developed from four-character, five-character, to seven-character, long and short sentences, words, and melodies, and finally became new poems, or vernacular poems.This is very natural, because more people have done it, the form has become obsolete, and the thinking has also become obsolete because it is inherited from the ancients; because it is necessary to break the shackles, the poetic style also changes.Chairman Mao said: "The future trend is very likely to absorb nutrients and forms from folk songs and develop into a new style of poetry that attracts a wide range of readers." I think this is indeed a truth!

Folk songs are sung during labor. They are really concise and generally rhyme neatly. There are too many examples of this kind.In 1958, when I was interviewing at the Ming Tombs Reservoir, I heard several female commune members of "Smashing" sing: Put it down and move towards water conservancy. I don't think this word was compiled long ago, because they sang it quickly while "slamming" and laughing. Just remember it! Another time, in 1960, I went to visit the Danjiangkou Water Conservancy Project.On the construction site, I happened to see a poem written by a worker on a wall newspaper, which was:

When the workers arrived at Danjiangkou, the green hills trembled one after another, thousands of troops marched in, and the party's red flag walked ahead. How powerful is this poem!It is also the same as what the oil workers said, "When the oil workers roar, the earth will tremble three times". They are the "human sounds" of the working people, and I remembered them all at once. Chairman Mao mentioned thinking in images in several places in this letter.The imagery thinking of new poems must also emerge from the practice of production struggle and class struggle, and we must not sit in deep courtyards or high-rise buildings, engage in "theme first", and copy it mechanically. The "anti-image thinking" of the "Gang of Four" is in opposition to Chairman Mao's teaching that writers must go deep into the masses and go among the workers, peasants and soldiers, and must be completely eliminated!My theoretical level is too low, let our poets do the talking.

(This article was originally published in the second issue of "Poetry" in March 1978.)