When reading and appreciating "North", I mentioned that Ai Qing's free poems are very controlling, simple and natural in expressing emotions and creating artistic realm. His poems are not written at will from the whole form to the paragraphs, rhythm, atmosphere and branches. A poem is a kind of life, from form to spirit. Once it is generated, it perfectly meets the requirements of the aesthetic image of this artistic life. I try to do this by writing my own poems, but it is difficult to achieve this almost natural state. Reading the short poem Beggar, I deeply feel that this poem has reached this state. It is carved from a whole rock. To be precise, it was created in an unshakable and unchangeable language like a rock. Many of Ai Qing's poems have this perfect sense of life, such as He got up, Life, Trumpeter and so on.
Every time I read this poem, it always reminds me of the disaster of war. This is a powerful accusation against the evil war of aggression. 1938 In the spring, I fled my war-torn hometown and lived on the Longhai Line. I saw these hungry and cold beggars from the war zone. I had a similar begging experience. Therefore, I understand the misery and despair of those beggars. They "scream with pain", they stare at you and eat "any food", and they extend their "black hands" … all because of hunger and war. Thank the poet for leaving us with this true image of war, so that we can always hate and oppose unjust wars. The long scroll "The Map of Refugees" drawn by the late famous painter Jiang of China also recorded the evil deeds of this war. All the paintings are tragic images of vagrants driven and killed by the war, which is very similar to the situation in Ai Qing's Beggar. Valhallen, a Belgian poet, wrote a poem "The Poor Man", which depicts the poor man's pitiful back, such as "the roof of a brown shack", such as "the eyes of livestock" and "the hands of dead leaves". These subtle parts can best express the inner pain of the poor. Therefore, after many years, they are still deeply engraved in the readers' hearts. I remember another famous foreign poet, Bo Han, wrote "The Catcher", which is an unforgettable and painful poem. Ai Qing's Beggar is comparable to such immortal poems in the world.
As mentioned above, this poem gives people the feeling of a complete artistic life. A poem that is completed at one time is often brewed in the poet's mind for a long time. Ai Qing recalled writing this poem and said that it took him a long time to observe the subtle movement of the beggar's hand, which reflected the pain and showed that the poem Beggar had been conceived for a long time. This poem is all expressed in practical language and subtle and accurate movements, without exaggeration or fiction. These simple words can never be changed. It is these languages of life that gave birth to a living and sad beggar.
Another poet in China also wrote a poem called "Beggar": "A beggar is walking on the Rose Road. /Singing folk songs in mouth/Holding flowers in hand. /I can't eat in the Ming Dynasty/I died in Bai Yutang. " The beggar in this poem, from heart to subtle movements, is by no means a real hungry beggar, but a false "beautiful" beggar, which actually distorts the painful image of a beggar. Perhaps this poet wrote about beggars in another sense, the so-called beggars: a celebrity courtship, but what does this have to do with real-name beggars? Ai Qing's Beggar is the beggar who really wants the world to disappear one day earlier.
Shortly after the publication of Ai Qing's Beggar, some critics said that the poem was too sad and melancholy, and further said that this sadness and melancholy was rooted in the poet's subjective emotions and was poisoned by the shadow of imagism and symbolism. This is surprising. Did you write too many questions about beggars' sadness and melancholy? The sadness and disaster written in Ai Qing's Beggar is a powerful accusation against the war of aggression, both ideologically and aesthetically. If the poet had not felt the pain and indignation of the beggar, he would never have written this poem.
When we read the following three lines, can we think clearly?
Hunger is terrible/it makes old people lose their kindness/young people learn to hate. What do beggars hate? What he hates, of course, is the war of aggression and the evil national enemy. There is absolutely no sign of symbolism here. It is a real beggar shaped by the blood and tears of war, and also an immortal beggar image in the history of China's new poetry.