Selected Poems of Zhou Lunyou - Honeysuckle Flower Poetry Collection

Author: Zhou Lunyou
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-12-01
Features: Whitman, starting from his empiricism, emphasized that "only second-rate poetry can immediately win people's favor." People are generally accustomed to treating reading as a ready-made spiritual consumption, disgusted by chewing and thinking, and thus find the profound connotations and original art of first-rate poetry alien to them, even instinctively rejecting it.
Poetry must be honest, passionate, and literary. In fact, these are equally required by other literary genres. Narrative works can still hold readers tight through the chain of stories, reduce expectations beyond knowledge and interest by satisfying voyeuristic desires, and thus mask their fundamental shortcomings. Poetry, however, is bare. Even literary refinement is part of its poetic essence, not an added decoration. Since ancient times, our poets have learned to flatter, coo, and play the part; in our poetic heritage, there are numerous poems written for imperial decrees, mutual odes, poems to deities, festival poems, and topic-based poems, etc. Undoubtedly, there exists a rigid, concealed, leisurely, and decadent tradition. This tradition is nourished and sustained by our deep national culture, even as it evolves from classical poetry to modern and postmodern poetry, competing daily for novelty, as long as the spirit remains unchanged, it cannot be said that the face of poetic history has truly altered.
"Humanity needs good poetry." Whether it is a stroke of genius or the result of deliberate effort, good poetry can emerge. However, first-rate poetry often reveals the relationship between poetry and the poet more clearly. Through this, the poet demonstrates the depth of life and extraordinary qualities, including artistic temperament, intellectual cultivation, moral sensibility, and so on. These subjective factors determine the quality of poetry. Only a first-rate poet is worthy of writing first-rate poetry, and first-rate poetry can never come from a mediocre poet. Whitman remarked, "Everyone writes poetry, but there are no poets." In fact, this is the view that the poet is greater than the poetry.
True poets possess a natural love for human freedom, and thus cannot help but be preoccupied with the plight of humanity. Among these, what they cannot tolerate are tyranny and servitude, the misfortune of the humiliated and the wronged, which cause them deep pain. Yet, this also makes them prone to the opposite of love, stirring hatred and resistance. Lu Xun’s "Barbarian poets," such as Byron and Shelley, are of this kind. Some poets, born into privilege, adhere to the doctrine of universal love, opposing revolutionary violence but not celebrating oppressive regimes. The activities of some poets are extremely limited, their love confined to themselves, lovers, or God, like Emily Dickinson. Yet, their poetry fully expresses the beauty of humanity. The poet delves into the depths of their soul from the heights of solitude, ultimately transcending sea level, revealing astonishing spiritual miracles: a lake is deeper than the sea.
Of course, all of this must be given poetic form. A lack of personalized form is insufficient to qualify as first-rate poetry. Moreover, form, from line breaks, rhetoric, rhythm, and rhyme to the establishment of style, contains an element of ambiguity, with an atmosphere or aura surrounding, permeating, and saturating it. Perhaps this is the externalization of life and the feeling of life. Poetry is a phenomenon of life, and life is mysterious. If the lines between lines flow with unusual smoothness, like the pedestrian street in Beijing’s Wangfujing, then it may qualify as propaganda but can never be first-rate poetry.
Based on this poetic view, Winter Jasmine Poetry Series seeks its own goals in today’s Chinese poetic scene: excellent poetry and poets. Winter jasmine belongs to the Caprifoliaceae family, a perennial semi-evergreen shrub that grows wild in fields and brambles, not requiring cultivation in famous gardens. Its leaves are opposite and ovate, with soft hairs. It blooms in summer, initially white, then turning yellow, with alternating white and yellow hues, hence the name "silver and gold flower." Its fragrance is sweet yet bitter, and when air-dried, it can be used as medicine. The vine stems are also medicinal and are named "everlasting winter" because they do not wither in winter. We invite poets with winter jasmine, as its nature is similar to theirs.
This is the preface.