"Old Pioneer" In Overseas Poetr

Yan Li,a modern poet,is one of the representative writers in the history of Chinese literature and Chinese modern poetry.From the 1970 s to today,he has been working ceaselessly for more than 40 years,adhering to the creation of his mother tongue,and producing a rich quantity of wonderful poems of high quality.It has contributed valuable spiritual wealth to the Chinese poetry scene and occupies an important position in the overseas Chinese literature circle and the Chinese modern poetry circle.First of all,Yan Li has been writing poems for more than 40 years and completed the transformation and growth from pursuing individual life poetics to representing the human collective during the journey of “Sino-US”.His poetic creation takes “Today” as the starting point and expresses his personal experience in a pioneering manner,but his way of speaking is different from the high-sounding declaration of obscure poets,forming his own tone of calm and objective narration.After he went abroad in the 1980 s,he suffered from heterogeneous culture shock and faced the awkward situation of being a “marginal person”.However,he soon opened his mind,kept pace with The Times,looked at the present as a “citizen of the world” and started thinking.At the same time,as the first Chinese poetry journal abroad,“One Line”,founded by him,should be an important historical data that cannot be avoided in the study of overseas Chinese literature and modern Chinese poetry,which is of great significance.Under the influence of Yan Li,“One Line” embodies the tolerance of all rivers,providing a stage for poets from China and around the world to pour out their souls.Among them,most poets see China through the eyes of the world,and see the world through the eyes of China,which makes this magazine not confined to the expression of personal boredom,but more social responsibility and world consciousness.Secondly,Yan Li’s poetic is rich in content and profound in thought.There are mainly retrospection of historical memory and nostalgia for the motherland and hometown,dialectical thinking of material civilization,concern and reflection on human condition,revealing the malpractice of the development of the current era and expressing worries about its consequences.However,based on his memory and experience of his native land and history in China,and inspired and influenced by worldwide ideas,literary concepts and artistic methods,he constructed his unique perspective and profound thoughts on the subject matter,that is,he had a new understanding and reflection on the object of poetry in a global perspective.In addition,Yan Li also has unique views on the theory of poetry,and provides many important constructive thoughts for the modern poetry circle.First,he emphasized the construction of inner civilization through reflection,restrained people’s primitive animality in introspection,and kept the world advancing toward civilization.Second,he called for the emancipation of words,namely,the retrieval of the escaped words,breaking the habitual language logic,the reconstruction,innovation and imagination of the accustomed word combination,association and oral language into poetry,which can be said to be the transcendental exploration and enlightenment of the third generation of poetry writing attitude.Thirdly,he believes that in the long period of cultural collision and comparison between China and the West,overseas poets’ application and cognition of mother tongue culture are more rational than narrow populist thoughts.Therefore,they stick to writing in mother tongue,laying a solid theoretical foundation for modern Chinese poetry writing.Finally,Yan Li’s poetic art is unique and distinctive.It is embodied in the humor and intelligence of language,the unique and rich connotation of image,the diversity of external forms and the relaxation of internal emotional rhythm.At the same time,he inherited the homology theory of Chinese classical poetry and painting,painting works and poetry creation echo from afar,with a tacit understanding,forming a benign poetry and painting interaction effect.The above artistic attainments of poetry,on the one hand,are derived from his love of salons,recitals and other artistic activities,so that he can contact the most avant-garde artistic ideas or creative ways and continue to explore;On the other hand,the multiple creation abilities brought by his multiple identities,such as novel,poet and painter,enable him to choose appropriate tools to express inspiration more accurately.The life experience of risking rebirth in pain gave Yan Li a broader vision and a deeper thought.His spirit of exploring for new changes and his unquenchable passion for creation mark his different spiritual temperament and artistic pursuit from his contemporaries.He uses poetry to express his rational thinking about the world and human beings,and takes poetry as a mirror to reflect on the present and construct inner civilization,becoming the “evergreen tree” of the avant-garde poetry circle,left a string of deep footprints in Chinese poetry.