Write familiar things and express real emotions
To write poems, you should choose familiar subjects, that is to say, you should write about what is around you, what you have experienced or what you have deep feelings about. Do not involve themselves with no direct intersection of things, otherwise written are empty words, set of words, no infectious. The subject matter is not afraid of the size of the unfamiliar.
I have been an editor of Poetry Magazine for many years, and I have seen tens of thousands of manuscripts, but not many of them have really touched people's hearts. Why? Because the vast majority of people who write like to look far and wide. Obviously, you are just a teacher who has never carried a gun, and you prefer to go to the ends of the earth with a sword, and you prefer to write about political and military subjects such as the South China Sea maneuvers. This is not your job, nor is it your life, you do not know them, write without details, no details will not be vivid, and will not be able to impress the reader.
We are familiar with the words of Li Yu, the later lord of the Southern Tang Dynasty, with obvious palace colors and imprints. He grew up in the palace, and the people and things he came into contact with all had distinctive palace colors. Even when he finally became a prisoner in another country, he never left the court. Li Yu's choice of subject matter was his life, which is one of the reasons why his words have been able to widely arouse people's ****songs for thousands of years.
Let me give you a negative example, so that you can compare it and perhaps visualize it. This is a piece of work I randomly selected from the Poetry Magazine mailbox:
A clump of flowers - new atmosphere in the new era
The new era presents a new atmosphere, and the heavy responsibility is carried on the shoulders. The whole people to create new performance, war risk, the courage to create brilliant. The key move for the great cause of a thousand years is reform and opening up.
Better life is the expectation of the people. The whole party must continue to struggle, can not have, resting thought. Realize the goal, planning leadership, all rely on the **** production party.
This lyric, in addition to the number of words is right, other are not right. Poetry magazine's mailbox contributions, the subject matter of the most festive poems, celebratory poems. Various festivals, meet what to write, year after year, can not see any difference, even this year, Qingming Festival, Dragon Boat Festival and last year, Qingming Festival, Dragon Boat Festival wrote no difference. From his works, you can not see his identity, occupation, age, preferences, thinking and other information, how can such works impress people?
Complicated issues are simplified, simple issues are deepened
Characters don't have to be complicated, and it's best to have just one main character in the whole poem. If there are too many characters, you can't make sense of them. For example, the following poem:
Visiting Fahong's residence
Looking down at Yanshan Mountain, the villa is deep in flowers and trees.
Tea welcomes the guests in the early summer, and ink colors the spring in the hall.
When you talk and laugh, you can always treasure what you have.
It's a great honor to be a member of this group, but I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to forget it.
The first line of this poem is about the writer himself looking down from Yanshan Mountain, and the second line is about his brother's residence and hospitality. Judging from the title, the focus should be on the latter, and the author's own journey in front can be omitted or weakened. If the first sentence is changed to: the car arrived at the bottom of Yan Mountain, it is straight to the point. As for how the author is on the mountain extreme eyes, and how to come from the mountain to the bottom of the mountain, this large paragraph of the plot all deleted, the whole poem will be much clearer.
The scene does not have to be varied. If there are more than one scene, we must pay attention to the orderly transition, such as: from far and near, from outside and inside, from high to low, etc., in short, there is a certain order.
Events do not have to be cumbersome. A small poem or words, to make a thing clear can, don't expect just a few dozen words, the up and down five thousand years, vertical and horizontal ninety thousand miles are all encompassed. Even if you are writing about something specific, you should write about one event in one poem. If the event is complex, write it in two or three events in a high-capacity genre such as group poems, linked chapters, ancient styles, songs and lines.
The tone must be single. Poetry or words, in general, the opening chapter will set the emotional tone of the whole piece, whether it is easy, light or sad, dark, all rely on the opening chapter to set. After the tone is set, the description must be harmonized with the tone. This is what we often call setting the tone, the same as singing.
Large subjects, put yourself in; small subjects, let yourself out
Seven lines - congratulations on the closure of the 19th National Congress (new rhyme)
Golden autumn event swing new tide, featured the flag red Ran Ran high.
Five years of splendor have won the world's praise, and a hundred years of vision has enticed people to be proud.
The people are rich, the country is rich, the mountains and rivers are beautiful, the gas is correct, the flow is clear and corruption is eliminated.
We have not forgotten our original intention to continue our great work, and we will sail for ten thousand miles without any hesitation.
This piece is also what I found in the mailbox of Poetry Magazine. The author did not put himself into it, and you can't see the shadow of the author. It is said that a poem is like a person and a person is like a poem, but we only see the poem but not the person.
Let's take a look at the work of our predecessors.
We are all familiar with Xin Qiji's "Qing Ping Le - Village Dwelling", which starts from a small place, and writes about the life of an ordinary family in the countryside, which is so small that it can't be any smaller. What the reader sees in this small scene and fragment is the stability and harmony of the whole society.
Su Shi's "Song of Water" was originally written for his younger brother Su Zhe, a very personal thing, but he let himself jump out. "People have their sorrows and joys, and the moon has its dark and clear days, and this matter can never be resolved. But I wish for a long time, a thousand miles ****chanjuan", these last lines, elevate the personal emotions to the universal feelings of the whole human race.
So, big topics, to put yourself in; small topics, to let yourself out. Or, in other words, for big subjects, start small; for small subjects, set your eyes high.
The difference between pentameter and heptameter, between "absolute" and "metrical", between poem and word
The difference between pentameter and heptameter
Generally, pentameter is based on scenery, and only in the last couplet is the emotion brought out a little, which is generated by the scenery. The sentiment is born out of the scenery. In the seventh line, the scenery serves the emotion.
Five-character poems, generally speaking, are about the performance of the real world, the natural world and the inner world, while seven-character poems emphasize more on the expression of the poet's inner world.
The former focuses on objective writing of scenery, while the latter focuses on subjective lyricism.
The difference between "absolute" and "metrical"
Generally speaking, the content of the poem is very precise, so it is appropriate to write absolute lines. If you have a good technique, it is better to write a poem in meter. The content of the new, strange ideas, the "absolute" can win, if the subject matter is old, mediocre ideas, through the "law" of the two couplets exquisite, neatly, to attract the reader's eyes, cover, make up for the other aspects of the shortcomings.
There is also a difference between the "law" and the "absolute", that is, the absolute is a generalization, while the law is a fine writing.
The difference between a poem and a word
To put it in a more graphic way, a poem is a poem in which people wear formal clothes to dance the national standard, while a word is a poem in which people wear casual clothes to dance the street dance or square dance. Poetry expresses a sense of public **** and the world, while words are characterized by life and storytelling.
We write words, is to give full play to the words of the different side of the poem. If words are the same as poems, why do we need the genre of words? What the word focuses on is the emotional side of human beings that the original poem failed to focus on. We know that Li Bai's and Du Fu's poems focus on the "big" aspects of society and life, and occasionally they write about their own temperament, but they are also related to morality, so the poets' personalities and preferences are very vague and invisible to us. The word gives the author a channel to vent his feelings, and what he was unwilling to write, unable to write, or afraid to write in the poem, he can express in the word.
Let's take a look at Liu Yong's "Raining Bells", which can be summarized in a single line of lyrics: "I don't want to go, I want to stay". Isn't it just that simple? Can you write a poem that is so elaborate?
So you see, the lyrics are concerned with the most sensitive and genuine emotional experience of an individual, and they have to spread out the infinite entanglement and unnamable feelings in the heart, little by little.
Choosing the right genre
After choosing a familiar subject, you have to choose the right genre. We should have a general judgment about under what circumstances we should write a jie, under what circumstances we should write a ryue, under what circumstances we should write a pentameter, under what circumstances we should write a heptameter, and under what circumstances we should fill in a lyric.
Of course, this is only for beginners, pick up the pen in hand, do not know how to start, know that there is such a general classification. For a mature poet, on the other hand, can be free at any time, is not subject to this constraint. If words resemble poems, they are not true, and Su Dongpo's words were criticized by many, including Li Qingzhao, for this reason. Although these opposing voices were eventually annihilated in the torrent of history, as a beginner, poems should be written according to the set pattern of poems, and words should be filled in according to the style of words. This is the same as when we write calligraphy. When we start practicing regular script, we have to write one stroke at a time and in the middle of the line, and when the level reaches a certain level, then we can write wild cursive.
(This article is based on the public number of Cangzhou Evening News)