Back to 80: My Literary Life

The Luyuan school building in Balizhuang has not been officially opened yet. It turns out that students from the Institute of Literature still rented the Chaoyang Greening Team's room for classes, so the place was temporarily empty.

After Fang Minghua first arranged accommodation at the designated guest house, he immediately rushed to Luyuan and saw judges arriving from all over the country in a conference room.

Famous poets Ai Qing, Gong Mu, Zang Kejia, Feng Zhi, Liushahe, Shao Yanxiang, editor-in-chief of Poetry Magazine and poet, and Zhang Zhong'e, deputy editor-in-chief of poetry in "Contemporary", are all famous and are big names in today's poetry world. A senior figure, and Fang Minghua is a proper junior,

The poetry award process this time is as follows: Provincial writers associations and important national publishing houses will recommend according to allocated quotas. The total number of works recommended in each session is more than 200.

The recently established reading team will then submit a list of recommended books to the judging panel that is twice or twice the number of awards. Each recommended poetry collection will be accompanied by a 500-word recommendation for the judges' reference. The jury votes and it takes 2/3 to win the award for a certain poetry collection.

This time the jury is expected to award 16 poetry collections, and a total of 40 candidate poetry collections are circulated among the 15 judges. Everyone discusses with each other and debates are inevitable.

Now Fang Minghua is holding a poetry collection "Selected Lyrical Poems by Shu Ting and G Cheng". This is the only poetry collection that the three major poets of Misty Poetry - Bei Dao, G Cheng and Shu Ting - participated in the selection.

Although Bei Dao has become famous all over the world at this time, unfortunately his poems are still published in many domestic magazines in the form of single poems and have not yet formed a poetry collection.

The same is true for Gu Cheng, but the People's Publishing House of Fujian Province published a total of 64 poems written by the two young poets in the ten years from 1971 to 1981.

Shu Ting had already published her first collection of poems "Brig" by Shencheng Literature and Art Publishing House in 1982, and won the second prize at the first Literary Award of the Chinese Writers Association. Therefore, there are only 21 poems in this collection. . Gu Cheng's poems account for the vast majority.

His earlier works such as "A Generation", "I Am a Wayward Child", "Please Pick Up This Flower", etc. are all collected here.

Fang Minghua took the poetry collection and read it carefully.

There are also poems in it that I am not familiar with, like this one by Shu Ting, "?.!".

That's right, the title is just a few punctuation marks.

"Now, let them

shoot me

I will walk calmly across the open space

walking towards you, walking towards you

The wind lifts the flying long hair

I am the lily in your shower.

The author always penetrates the indifference or false surface of real life to penetrate deep into the heart of life and appeals for people's most real requirements.

There is also this poem by Gu Cheng: "The Rain"

The clouds are so gray that they can no longer be washed clean.

We opened our umbrellas and blackened the sky

There are two pairs of double stars in the slowly moving night

It seems that there is no fixed orbit, just sometimes far and sometimes close

Everything is beautifully written.

According to the regulations, if you think a certain poetry collection is good, the jury will give everyone a special ballot with the name of the candidate poem. You can just check the box at the back and write a comment at the same time.

Fang Minghua picked up the pen and solemnly marked the back of the book of poems, then thought about it and began to write a review.

Sitting next to him is Zhang Zhong'e, deputy editor of "Contemporary". In 1981, "Contemporary" magazine held a new era poetry competition. Fang Minghua won the second prize. He also came to Yanjing to receive the award and held a poetry seminar, so The two of them are considered acquaintances.

Zhang Zhong'e turned his head and accidentally saw Fang Minghua's check mark behind "Selected Lyric Poems of Shu Ting and Gu Cheng" and couldn't help but asked in a low voice: "Editor Fang, do you also like this poetry collection?"

"Yes, I think they are all beautifully written. In Shu Ting's poems, the description of friendship and love occupies a prominent position in these poems, showing the humane and restless spiritual world of a gentle and sentimental woman. .”

"As for Gu Cheng's poems, except for "My Cemetery", "Sacrifice", "Capital "I"" and other chapters, which touch the existing society and euphemistically criticize the political forces that create life tragedies, most of the poems are based on a theme. With a pure childish heart, we can create a "fairy tale garden" that is higher than the real world.

Overall: A touch of sadness constitutes the tone of this collection of poems, which truly reflects the sense of loss of a generation of young people who have suffered misfortunes and the turmoil and anguish of seeking life fulfillment. I think both the text and the content are very good! "

"Editor Fang, your analysis is good." Zhang Zhong'e nodded, suddenly lowering his voice and looking a little mysterious: "However, some people can say that this poetry collection does not meet the requirements of this selection."

"Doesn't meet the requirements? You mean this collection of poems was not written by one person but co-authored by two people?" Fang Minghua suddenly realized something.

Zhang Zhong'e nodded.

Fang Minghua was a little confused:

"Isn't that right? Editor Zhang, the selection rules do not specify that the collection of poems must be written by one person. Besides, this selection is based on whether the collection of poems is excellent and not on selecting poets. Doesn't this affect it?"

Zhang Zhong'e smiled and said nothing more.

Fang Minghua didn't ask any more questions and looked down at the poem manuscript.

The poetry world is inherently a world of poetry, and the big guys here are all inextricably linked to the authors of these collections of poems. They may like someone or hate someone. These subjective impressions can easily be brought into the evaluation of the poetry itself.

Shu Ting and Gu Cheng are both representatives of Misty Poetry, and there are some big guys here who don't like Misty Poetry.

This is not hearsay, but a public matter. There have been debates about this in newspapers and magazines. It is not a secret.

Fang Minghua didn't pay attention to this matter.

If I like it, I will put a check mark, and if I don't like it, I will put a cross. Whether I win or not is not the final decision for me.

After five days of repeated discussions, the judges selected 15 books from the 40 recommended poetry books to win this year's poetry award. However, there was a fierce debate over the final selection.

It happened to be Shu Ting and Gu Cheng's "Selected Lyrical Poems of Shu Ting and Gu Cheng".

In the afternoon, 15 judges gathered in the conference room of Luyuan to debate fiercely whether this poetry collection should be selected.

In fact, what is there to argue about?

According to the rules of this selection, if two-thirds of the 15 judges vote in favor, then a certain collection of poems can successfully win the award, and this collection of poems by Shu Ting and Gu Cheng received 10 votes, which just exceeded the minimum number of votes required.

However, the most crucial person did not vote in favor.

This time the director of the jury is Ai Qing.

Fang Minghua sat at the edge, drinking tea silently and listening to Ai Qing's opinions:

"This collection of poems was written by two people respectively, which means it collects the better poems written by two people. This is unfair to other poets. In addition, Comrade Shu Ting has already won the first Modern Literature Award with her The poetry collection "Brig" has already won an award, so let's forget it this time."

Everyone listened silently and said nothing.

In fact, everyone understands it.

Ai Qing doesn't like hazy poetry.