The Great  Earth and What It Brings
— on Wen Qing's poems Marking for This Animal Year
      Critic : Jing Wendong

  Mr. Wang Guowei made a brilliant comment on the difference between the north and the south on Chinese literature: "The feeling of the northerners on poems is lack of imagination, so what they do not write  long-winded  works  ; The imagination of the Southerners on poems has not deep feelings put in works, so their imagination is also scattered and unrestrained and  unsmart, so there is not  unalloyed poetry". According to the geographical climate, literature is divided into two types “ emotion” and “imagination”, it may not be supported by mysterious metaphysical basis, but it is likely to conform to our practical experience: the geographical environment of the north is  mostly vast with plains and winding towering mountains, and the northerners are accustomed to measuring things with clear hierarchical order, thus it forms a land-centered ethical boundary ; In south ，the environment is mostly circled by cloudy lakes and swamps and dense deep mountain with forests. Southerners are used to experiencing things with obscure and chaotic integrity, and form an imaginary boundary with water as the core.  the literary temperament is nurtured and nourished by land and water, respectively,if geographical culture assembles and fuses in the transitional zone between the North and South ，What kind of literary effect will this create?  The poetry anthology Marking for This Animal Year releases： As a poet living in Xinyang, Wen Qing, by  his unique personal endowment, exerts his special geographical and cultural advantages and draws on the strengths of North and South literature, thus it forms his literary temperament of  taking the land as  the core  with harmonious atmosphere  of people and the environment.
Wen Qing's poems are first based on the physical laws of the land and labor relations. The foundation of his poems is steady and solid, and the fruit of his poems is also splendid. The words are Jointing, Blossoming, Harvesting", resounding voices, such as "groping constantly in the soil  /with all the roots /becoming brothers of life and death" （A Whole Life's Work); "only labor can wipe away the dust of the world." /“only the land can take in the joys and sorrows  and hand down from generation to generation”（Found an Ancient Bowl When Farming）. The repeatedly emphasized behaviors of "groping" and "working" are regarded as links between life and land as well as between life and life. In the practical relationship between man and land formed by labor,what the poet eulogizes is not the imaginary moral subject, but an acting world composed of strength, movement and deformation. In this world, land blossoms in human flesh; mankind’s will and power spread on land. The voice and breath of the land respond to the existence and reality of life, while human life is involved in the circulation and  transferring of the land - life and the earth have a deep and intimate internal correspondence, which reaches a very harmonious relationship  . "when getting into the rice ears /you can get out of me/when you  get out of me/the god that grow out of the land will give me Immortality.”（This Bright White Liquid Enters the Gray Body）. Land is not only a place to accommodate life, but also a realm of heaven and earth symbolizing  order and rule ;  with land as its connecting point and heaven as its orientation, it has a sense of endless  and infinity.

Unlike the extroverted and positive land-centered creative power, the other pole of Wen Qing's poems is the introverted and negative water-centered reflective power. The negative power of water brings a gentle and peaceful temperament to Wen Qing's poems. For example, "that morning mist / is the placenta of a  river /it is unable to escape from gestation / in a troubled world / tens of millions of encounters / as soon as it ’s born, it knows to turn  back"; "It hides in a river / would rather  dissolves itself in water / from then on, in this river / you have to be calm..."（Marking for the River). Water, with its fluidity and circulation,it enlightens the unity of the beginning and the ending, implying an eternal calm state . Water is a unalloyed  moral force, as Foucault said: "The torrent of water can wash away dirty,idle dream and  the almost lie-like fantasy. Water, in the moral atmosphere of psychiatric hospitals, makes people face the naked reality. It has power of bigness and cleanness. It is both baptism and confession. It also makes fools return to the state before they made mistakes and makes them fully aware of themselves.” Water,washes and purifies the dust of life, triggers the imagination of life on maternal placenta and amniotic fluid, activates the desire of life to return to primitive blurriness, and opens up the potential internality and mystery of life.
The integrated structure of land and water not only emphasizes the movement instinct of life expanding outward, but also supplements the inner introspective power of restraint and temperance, which shapes the psychological feeling types of Wen Qing's internal and external dialectics, complementing of Yin and Yang, and concurrent emphasis on the breadth and depth of life. As Wen Qing chanted in his poems:

At this point, one collects his own seeds
His sincere heart wanders in  mountains and rivers
and flattens every scar in the past
It will certainly harvest the space hidden deep in the soil.
It had once taken the power of growth.
enough for one person to go back to the past
_
(Every Scar Has to Be Plowed Deeply and Carefully)

By the image of land and water, the breadth and inner depth of life are revealed, it embodies the dream of life creation and return, and is close to the most authentic form of life: life is a circulating and reciprocating process from seed to seed，with gathering and diffusing power.
In ancient farming China, natural order was the embodiment of the physical rationality of the universe, which made people produce a sense of awe and gratitude, it provided a model and basis for human social order, and became the main source of moral consciousness. In the era when the natural order was regarded as the Heaven’s order, literature was regarded as the expression of the natural rule, and the language order was the symbol of the Heaven’s order. As Liu Xie said, "Looking up at the splendid scenery , looking down at the scenery in the ground,the height and lowness of the heaven and earth had been positioned, so the two important poles had been formed. Once wise human being grasped the knowledge and knew the running rule ,it formed the so-called “three  poles”： heaven 、earth、human, they have been being the most initiative element in all things  ,and  the core of the real world, human has been thinking and feelings, so language was created, words make the human civilizing ,it is the way of nature ... Therefore, if the frame has been made ,an article would be easy finished, a man can make articles as his  voices”. Ancient poets took the naturalness of the world  as their principle, showing the natural beauty and the present beauty of their world. They made the virtue and goodwill in their hearts  fit  with the sacred beauty of nature, and materialized life into an equal living  organism with mountains, rivers, plants and trees. In industrial society, people explore the deep secrets of nature with the help of science and technology, and the natural world is made transparent by tools and machinery,so nature no longer has self-evident significance, nor is the source of moral value. Poetry writers no longer fully comply with moral rationality, but become an incomplete and constantly self-renewal emotional subject ; the process of poetry writing is the process of the formation of the subject, a process of seeking oneself or outlining for himself. In the era of disenchantment of nature and subject, how to adjust the relationship between man and nature and incorporate nature into poetry as a poetic resource is an important topic for poets. This is also the question of how to modernize the traditional  Chinese culture of "harmony between man and nature" put forward by Mr. Li Zehou: the ancient people in China integrated ethics and morality as an ontology with the nature of the universe, and established the ideal of humanity and morality of inherent ethical freedom; and the aesthetic harmony between man and nature as life realm  and life ideal today, how to absorb the lofty and tragic spirit of the West from meditation to action,and make it have intrinsic motive to break through tranquility and pursue vigorously, and become the practical material force to promote history, and become the conscious rhythm and form of modern society, it transforms and absorbs the traditional relevance of harmony relationship between man and nature  of "learn from the heaven and earth,and realize one's ideal" in China,and truly realizes the harmonious coexistence and intimate relationship between man and nature. What Mr Li advocates is a kind of life form that respects the initiative and creativity of life, restrains the swelling desire and maintains the appropriate steps and rhythm of life-form.

Wen Qing's writing can mostly be regarded as a successful inspiration. He regards nature and life as the oneself of things that coexist synergistically ,a community full of life vitality and mysterious and inextricable depth. It can not be included in the category of rational cognition and be logicalized. In fact, it is a life form with self-sufficiency and integrity. Only in this way, man and nature become indistinguishable living things in essence, and nature appears more deeply in the human sensory system and deeply blends with life. Thanks to his special personal endowment and geographical advantages, Wen Qing has formed a unique internal feeling system. On the one hand, he emphasizes to create the positive force , on the other hand, he focus on balancing the negative force of restraint and . This form of spiritual feeling is adapted to the rhythm of life in which nature thrives and withers, advances and retreats, closely corresponds to the return of bioethics and the creation of nature, and reflects the combination of deep-seated forces of man and nature, thus he establishes a deeper internal relationship between nature and life , a life community that plays and resonates with each other. It is still the integration of life and nature, but this kind of nature is the form of externalization of the mental picture, and the inner depth of life must be evoked and stimulated by nature. This relationship between man and nature is as Taylor said, "This new orientation of nature is not directly concerned with simple or sincere virtue, but with the emotion aroused by nature within us. We return to nature because it shows strong and noble feelings within us. Nature attracts us because it mediates our feelings to some extent or wakes our sleeping feelings. Nature is like a big keyboard on which our high-level emotion plays. We turn to it for help, like turning to music for help, to arouse and strengthen the best emotions within us”. This is really a new kind of harmony relation between man and nature in modern society. Wen Qing therefore writes: "only nature loves the time / produces the seeds of fine grass /crosses mountains and rivers / brings a grain of dust to the past and present life / clothes the naked world" (A Book for Dust）. In the cycling of time that keeps moving forward and returning to the starting point,the nature performs life and death with rhythms, preserving a variety of life forms. It is enough to confront the monotonous world and give the world a strong flesh. In an era when life is made a single-way and a flat form by desire , and in the time when mysterious nature is  made transparent and mechanized, Wen Qing still maintains the dignity and dreams of the rich life forms. He still has the dignity to despise the fast-decay and perishable life forms and stick to the right of dreams:
I am waiting for the berries of my life.
To cover the earth.

（中译英）


           大地和大地带来的
                    ——读温青的《本命记》
     
                         敬文东


王国维先生对中国文学的南北差异有一番精彩的评论：“北方人之感情，诗歌的也，以不得想象之助，故其所作遂止于小篇；南方人之想象，亦诗歌的也，以无深邃之情感之后援，故其想象亦散漫而无所丽，是以无纯粹之诗歌”。依地理气候将文学分为感情和想象两种类型，未必有神秘的形而上依据作为支撑，却极有可能符合我们的现实经验：北方的地理环境多为宽广无垠的平原和蜿蜒耸立的高山，北人习惯用清晰的高低等级秩序衡量事物，形成了以土地为中心的伦理界域；南方的地理环境多为云气弥漫的湖泊沼泽和密集深邃的深山老林，南人习惯用朦胧的整全性和混沌性品味事物，形成了以水为核心的想象界域。分别由土地和水泽孕育、滋养的文学气质，如果在南北地理文化的过渡地带汇集与融合，会产生怎样的文学效应呢？诗集《本命记》表明：作为生活在信阳的诗人，温青凭借独特的个人禀赋，发挥其得天独厚的地理文化优势，汲取南北文学之长，从而形成了以大地为核心的水土交融的文学气质。
温青的诗歌首先建立在土地的物性法则和劳作关系之上，诗歌的根基沉稳扎实，结出的果实亦摇曳生姿——词语“拔节、扬花、结籽”的声音铮铮作响，如“在泥土中不断摸索/与所有的根茎/结成生死相依的兄弟”（《一生的劳作》）；“只有劳作能够掸去人间尘埃/只有土地能够收纳传世悲喜”（《在耕作中翻出前朝的碗底》。得到反复强调的“摸索”和“劳作”等动作，被视为连接生命和土地以及生命与生命之间的纽带。在人与土地由劳作结成的实践关系中，诗人讴歌的不是想象的道德主体，而是一个由力量、运动和变形构成的行动世界。在这个世界里，土地在人的肉身中开花；人的意志和力量则在土地上蔓延。土地中的声音、气息回应着生命的存有与实在，人的生命则参与到土地的循环与流动中——生命与大地发生着深沉而亲密的内在应和，达到了水乳交融的关系。“走进谷穗/就可以走出我了/走出了我/土地长出的神明将赐我长生不死”《这亮白的液体进入灰暗的身躯》。土地不仅仅是容纳生命的场所，更是象征道统秩序的天地境界；土地上的生命则是以土地为连接点、以天为朝向的共同体，具有生生不息的广阔性和无限感。
与外向、阳性的以土地为核心的创造力量不同，构建温青诗歌的另外一极则是内向的、阴性的以水为中心的反省力量。水的阴性力量为温青的诗歌带来了一股温和平宁的气质。如“那晨雾/是一条河的胎衣/让它无法从孕育中逃离/在一个跌宕的世界/千万次碰壁/一出生，就知道回头”；“它躲在一条河里/宁愿把自己溶入水中/从此，在这条河里/你得以平静……”（《河流记》）水以其流动性和循环性启示着开端与终点的合一，暗示着一种永恒的平静状态。水是一种纯净的道德力量，正如福柯所言：“那激流直下的水能够冲走污浊、空想和一切近乎谎言的异想天开。水，在精神病院的道德氛围中，使人面对赤裸裸的现实，它具有强大和洁净力，既是洗礼，也是忏悔，也使愚者回到误失之前的状态的同时，使他彻底认识自我。”水洗涤与净化了生命的尘埃，引发了生命对母体胎衣与羊水的想象，激活了生命回归到原始混沌的冲动，打开了生命潜在的内在性与神秘感。
土地与水泽相互融合的结构，既强调生命向外扩充的运动本能，又辅之以克制与节度的内向反省力量，塑造了温青内外辩证、阴阳互补、兼重生命的广阔性与内在深度的心理感受类型。正如温青在诗歌中所吟咏的：

此时，本命收敛种子
本心漫游于河流山川
拂平每一枚伤疤的前世
必将收获泥土深处蕴藏的空间
它收纳过生长的力量
足够一个人回到从前”
（《每一块伤疤都要深耕细作》）

借由土地和水的形象，生命的广阔性和内在深度彰显出来了，体现了生命创造与复归的梦想，贴近生命最本真的形态：生命是一个聚集着力量的散发与收纳、从种子到种子的循环往复过程。
在农耕中国，自然秩序是宇宙实体理性的体现，令人产生敬畏和感激意识，为人类的社会秩序提供了摹本与基础，并成为道德意识的主要来源。在视自然秩序为天道的时代，文学被视为对自然秩序的表现，语言秩序则是天道秩序的象征。正如刘勰所言：“仰观吐曜，俯察含章，高卑定位，故两仪既生矣。惟人参之，性灵所钟，是谓三才，为五行之秀，实天地之心，心生而言立，言立而文明，自然之道也……故形立则章成矣，声发而文生矣。”古典诗人以自然的本然性为宗，呈现出自然的本然美和当下美，令心中的德善修行与自然的圣姿庄颜相契合，让生命物化为与山水草木相平等的生命有机体。到得工业社会，人借助科技力量探测着自然的深层奥秘，自然世界被工具和机械透明化了。自然不再具有自明的意义，也不再是道德价值感的来源。诗歌写作者不再完全遵从道德理性，而成为一个未完成的、不断地自我更新的感受性主体；诗的言说过程是主体形成的过程，是一个在寻找自我或是在为自己找寻轮廓的过程。在自然和主体被祛魅的时代，如何调整人与自然的关系，将自然作为一个诗学资源纳入到诗歌中，是摆在诗人面前的重要课题。这也正是李泽厚先生提出的中华文化“天人合一”传统如何现代化的问题：中国古人将伦理与道德作为本体与宇宙自然相通为一，建立起内在伦理自由的人性理想和道德境界；今日作为人生境界和生命理想的审美的天人合一，如何从静观到行动，如何吸取西方的崇高和悲剧精神，使之富有冲破宁静、发奋追求的内在动力，而成为推动历史的物质的现实动力，成为现代社会的自觉的韵律和形式，改造而吸收中国“参天地、赞化育” 的天人合一的传统关联，真正实现人与自然的和谐相处和亲密关系。李氏倡导的，是一种既尊重生命的主动创造性，又能克制膨胀的欲望，保持适宜节奏和韵律的生命形态。
温青的写作满可以视为一个较为成功的启示。他将自然和生命视为协同性共在的物自体——一个充溢着生命活力而具有神秘性和不可解深度的共同体。它不能被纳入理性认知范畴之内而被逻辑化。事实上，它是一种具有自足性和完整性的生命形态。唯其如此，人与自然在本质上成为没有区别的生命体，自然更深地出现在人的感觉体系之中，与生命发生深度的交融。得益于独特的个人禀赋和地域优势，温青形成了独特的内在感受体系，他一方面强调创造的阳性力量，另一方面注重克制与平衡的阴性力量。这种心灵感受形式与自然界生息荣枯、前进退藏的生命节奏相适应，与自然的创造与回归的生命伦理紧密相应，体现了人与自然的深层次力量的契合，从而在自然和生命之间建立起更深刻的内在关联——相互演奏与共鸣的生命共同体。依然是生命与自然的共融，只不过这种自然是心灵图景外化的形式，而生命的内在深度又必须经过大自然的召唤与激发。这种人与自然的关系，正如泰勒所言，“对自然的这种新取向并不直接关心单纯或质朴的德性，而是关注本性在哦我们内部唤起的情感。我们复归自然，是因为它显示了我们内部强烈而高尚的情感。自然吸引我们，是因为它在某种程度上调解我们的感受，或者唤醒休眠的情感。自然像一个大键盘，我们的高级情感在上面演奏。我们求助它，就像求助音乐一样，去唤起和加强我们内部最好的情感。”这未尝不是现代社会中一种新型的天人合一关系。温青因此写道：“只有大自然与时光相爱/生出那些细草的籽粒/越过山高水长/带去一粒尘埃的前世今生/给这个赤裸裸的世界披上衣裳”（《尘埃书》）在不断向前、又不断回归起点的循环的时间形式里，大自然上演着依循节律的生死荣枯，保存着丰富多样的生命形态，足以对抗单调乏味的世界，赋予世界丰满的肉身。在生命被欲望支配成单向度和扁平化形式的时代，在神秘的自然被透明化和机械化的岁月，温青依然保持着维护生命丰富形态的尊严与梦想，他依然有气度蔑视着那些速朽的易于败坏的生命样态，固守着梦想的权利：
我静候着，这一生的浆果
涂满大地。


评论者敬文东：
敬文东，1968生于四川省剑阁县，文学博士，现为中央民族大学文学与新闻传播学院教授。主要有《流氓世界的诞生》《指引与注视》《失败的偶像》《随“贝格尔号出游”》《事情总会起变化》《感叹诗学》等专著，有《写在学术边上》《颓废主义者的春天》《梦境以北》《网上别墅》《房间内的生活》等随笔、小说和诗集，另有《被委以重任的方言》《灵魂在下边》《诗歌在解构的日子里》等文集。获第二届唐弢青年文学研究奖，第二届西部文学奖，第16届华语文学传媒年度文学评论家奖等。

About the critic：
Jing Wendong, born in 1968 in Jiange County,from Sichuan Province,got doctor degree of literature. He is now a professor of the College of Literature and Journalism,Central University  of Nationalities .Mainly he has finished these poetic monographs ：The Birth of the Hooligan World, Guidance and Gaze, The Idol of Failure, Traveling with the Beagle, Things Always Change, Grumbling for Poetics,and so on,and novels 、 poetry  anthologies、prose collection such as  Written on the Edge of Academy, Spring of Decadence , The North of Dreamland, Online Villas, Life in the Room,and  Dialects Entrusted with Heavy Responsibility,The Soul Below, Poetry in the Days of Deconstruction and other collections have won the second Tang Xu Youth Literature Research Award, the second Western Literature Award, and the 16th Annual Literature Critic Award of Chinese Literature Media and so on.

英译者林巧儿：
笔名月芽儿，广州人，英文翻译。诗、词、文学评论、英译（中译）作品发表在《人民日报》、《深圳日报》、《快乐英语报》、美国双语报纸《海华都市报》、《诗选刊》、《诗潮》、《芒种》、《中华女子诗词》等国内外约60家报刊。
十几次获得各类公开性诗赛奖项，她已经中译或英译文学类、法律类、经济类等各类文字约百万字， 在美国、中国等地报刊发表（出版）英译、中译作品约20万字。主译大型诗歌活动“百名诗人访延安”之诗合集《百名诗人写延安》，出版《月芽儿短诗选》（中英文）等 。

About the translator：
Lina moon, interpreter,she is from Guangzhou,her real name is Lin Qiaoer. Her modern poetry,Chinese classic rhythmic poetry,literary criticism and English Translation works had partly published in ‘People's Daily’, ‘Shenzhen Dail’ ,’Happy English Newspaper’ , America"Huahai City Daily’ ,Journal of Selected Poems’, ’Poetry Trend’, ‘Mangzhong’ andso on,more than 60newspapers and magazines at home and abroad.
   She had won prizes in differentpoetrycompetitions more than ten times . She has translated about one million words between Chinese and English, involving literature category、legal category、economic category.,around 200 000 words of her translation works had been published in America、 China and other countries .She is the chief English translator of the significant poetry anthology ‘Poems of Yanan Written by 100 Chinese Poets’.  She had published ‘ Short Poems of Lina Moon" (Chinese andEnglish)’ , Ten Poetess in South China”（Chinese category）.

感谢评论家和翻译家，致敬！