China News Agency, Paris, August 18th: Why is the exchange of poetry between China and France so exciting?
——Interview with Zhang Ruling, a poet living in France
China News Agency reporter Li Yang
The "2022 Chinese Contemporary Poetry Recitation" was recently held at the Chinese Cultural Center in Paris, attracting attention from the cultural circles of China and France.
China News Agency "East and West Questions" exclusively interviewed Zhang Ruling, the planner of the event and a well-known poet living in France, and asked her to explain the current situation of Sino-French poetry exchanges and the important influence of poetry exchanges between the two countries in promoting people-to-people bonds.
The following is a summary of the interview transcript:
China News Service reporter: You are the planner of the "2022 Chinese Contemporary Poetry Recitation Conference". Please talk about the planning ideas for this event.
What is the significance of this event for Sino-French poetry exchange?
Zhang Ruling: At the invitation of the Chinese Writers Association, I planned and organized this poetry reading. The Chinese ambassador to France, Lu Shaye, and the Chinese Cultural Center in Paris gave important support.
At this recital, the poems were not only read aloud, but also accompanied by cello, flute, the oldest musical instrument in China, xun and modern dance. The fusion of Eastern and Western art, classical and modern, made the expression of poetry richer, fuller and more innovative and three-dimensional. .
Poetry recitation is different from reading aloud, and the recitation meeting should have a style and realm, requiring the reciter to accurately convey the thoughts and emotions of the poem to the audience, and make them "infected" and "summoned".
Zhang Ruling, the event planner of the "2022 Chinese Contemporary Poetry Recitation Conference" and a poet living in France.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Li Yang
How to perfectly and harmoniously present poetry, music, dance and pictures to the audience in a very limited space and time, so that the latter three do not overwhelm the audience, but always revolve around the poet's poetry to create an elegant and refined atmosphere, highlighting the The expressive artistic conception of the poems made the poems knock on the hearts of the Chinese and French audiences that night. This recitation was an attempt and innovation.
On the evening of June 30, the "2022 Chinese Contemporary Poetry Recitation" was held at the Chinese Cultural Center in Paris.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Li Yang
In my opinion, Chinese poetry has reached its heyday in the Tang Dynasty, and the pursuit of poetry, music and painting is the perfect state of art.
The ancients paid attention to the slow appreciation of elegant products, while modern people seem to pursue more superficial sensory stimulation.
I just want to properly interpret traditional art with the artistic conception of contemporary art, and interpret the context and imagery of contemporary poetry.
But the realization process is still very difficult.
Judging from the feedback from the audience after the recitation, this practice was very successful, and it will also provide a good demonstration for our future poetry exchange.
What moved me the most was the presence of the 92-year-old Adonis, a leading international poet in the world of poetry, and the chief secretary-general of the Toulouse Poetry Academy who also came from afar to give a speech.
It is invaluable for Chinese poets to find audiences and readers who truly love and listen to their poems in foreign countries.
China News Agency reporter: The poems at the recitation are all modern Chinese poems. Do you think the French audience can understand them well?
How to better let Chinese modern poetry "go out"?
Zhang Ruling: The artistic achievements of Chinese classical poetry are at their peak, and their international influence is so great that when talking about poetry with many French people, most of them only know Tang poetry and Song poetry.
In fact, the enlightenment and development of modern Chinese poetry was deeply influenced by French poetry, especially the works of French poets such as Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud, and Apollinaire.
Almost everyone in the French poetry circle knows Li Bai and Du Fu, but few people can name several contemporary Chinese poets.
I think it is very necessary to promote Chinese modern poetry, because modern poetry reflects the reality and trend of thought in China, which is a cultural channel for France and the international community to understand and understand China.
The recitation invited four representatives of contemporary Chinese poetry, Zhao Lihong, Chen Dongdong, Ouyang Jianghe and Li Shaojun, to read their respective works.
Their poetry styles vary, allowing French audiences and readers to intuitively experience the diversity of contemporary Chinese poetry.
Due to language limitations, for French audiences, Chinese modern poetry is definitely not as expressive as the native language, but with the help of music, dance and the rich emotional expression of the reciters, they can feel the ideological and artistic conception conveyed by the poetry.
This recitation is mainly for French-speaking audiences. I tried my best to strive for excellence in my recitations in both Chinese and French, so as to show the audience the overall elegance and quality.
There is no shortage of excellent works in modern Chinese poetry, but it does lack a stage for "going out".
As a poet who grew up under the influence of the poetry culture of China and France and has long been committed to promoting Sino-French cultural exchanges, I very much hope that I can use my modest power to help outstanding modern Chinese poets to go to a broader world stage, and to create a better world. Loved by a broad readership.
Reporter from China News Service: There are more and more exchanges of poetry between China and France. In your opinion, what is the status of poetry exchange in Sino-French cultural exchanges?
Zhang Ruling: Sino-French poetry exchanges are becoming more frequent.
In my opinion, poetry exchange may be more advantageous in cultural exchanges between the two countries, because poetry is both ideological and artistic, easy to be accepted and recited, and has a strong dissemination power.
I sincerely hope that Chinese poets will create more masterpieces, and the Chinese Writers Association or various literary and art groups will organize more cultural exchange activities with France to jointly promote Sino-French cultural exchanges.
Poetry recitation at the "2014 Sino-French Poetry Festival".
Photo by China News Agency reporter Cui Nan
Poetry is a very small form of literary expression in literature and art. The status of poetry in Chinese contemporary literature has always belonged to the "spring and snow", always on the top of the pyramid, and the audience is relatively small.
However, poetry is the most moving, touching and borderless literary form.
Poetry has no national boundaries. Although the language and characters are different, the emotions expressed by the poets are the same, and the themes and ideas they want to express are also integrated.
As a poet living in France, I very much hope that the outstanding poets in my hometown can be understood and interpreted by French people.
China News Agency reporter: You once said that nostalgia is an eternal theme, and nostalgia is often synonymous with nostalgia in Western languages.
Is it easier for the poetry themes of farewell, nostalgia and nostalgia to resonate with Chinese and French audiences at the same time?
Zhang Ruling: I have always believed that the nostalgic poems of ancient Chinese poets are "unparalleled"; it is precisely because those well-known Tang and Song poems that express nostalgia and parting were introduced to France and other countries, that a large number of Tang and Song poets' works have become part of the history of international poetry. Timeless gem.
In ancient China, poets left their hometowns and traveled thousands of miles to study or go to work in other places without knowing when they would return.
They sighed the nostalgia for their relatives and homeland with poems. Every poem is a swan song from the heart, and every poem has infected generations of Chinese and French poets.
On April 22, 2019, students from the Experimental Primary School in Baokang County, Hubei Province recite "Three Hundred Poems of Tang Dynasty" on the campus.
Photo by Yang Tao issued by China News Agency
Nostalgia is the eternal theme of poetry. Whether it is ancient or modern, Chinese or French, people can experience parting and nostalgia. It is as eternal as the theme of love, and it is the poet's true emotional expression.
Especially in my early years, I left my homeland and struggled in a foreign land. For 40 years, I wandered overseas. The feelings of homesickness and parting have taken up a lot of space in my life.
But with the increase of experience and the precipitation of years, I have more thoughts about life.
The world is so big and life is so wonderful. Poetry should write the depth of thought with the beauty of rhythm. "I write my heart" is the most important.
China News Agency reporter: How do you think the exchange of poetry between China and France should be further promoted?
Against the background of the current epidemic, what are your plans for the next poetry exchange activities?
Zhang Ruling: There are so many things in the world, we are more eager than ever for mutual understanding and dialogue between people.
I believe that poetry is the bridge between human souls.
The epidemic has made international travel difficult, so the recent exchange activities may only be carried out in the form of a combination of online and offline.
I hope that the Sino-French Poetry Exchange Conference can be made a normalized event to help the poets of the two countries have more exchanges and promote the mutual understanding between the two peoples.
At the same time, I also hope to invite Chinese poets to come to France to participate in various poetry activities. I believe that the trip to an exotic land will definitely bring them more creative inspiration.
I am often invited to participate in international poetry festivals in China, and I have more and more exchanges with poets in my hometown about poetry and spiritual communication.
It was also from then on that I was determined to introduce the outstanding poets of my hometown to the French cultural publishing and poetry circles one by one, and I have already started to do so.
When the Chinese Writers Association invited me to take charge of and plan the activities of the poetry section of the French "Chinese Literature Readers Club", I readily agreed and was willing to promote Chinese poets for the long-term obligation of the Writers Association.
The late famous poet Bai Hua once wrote to me: "You are returning to yourself, and time can't stop your return. This is more pleasing than all your successes." His encouragement inspires me all the time to create more for the rest of my life. Good poetry, come back to the ranks of poets, and do something real for the poets of my hometown.
This is my original intention.
(Finish)
Interviewee Profile:
Photo by China News Agency reporter Li Yang
Zhang Ruling, a French-Chinese poet, graduated from the Chinese Department of Nanjing Normal University in 1982, and then went to Stanford University in the United States and the University of Paris in France to study for a doctorate in comparative literature.
Appointed as a visiting professor at Fudan University and his alma mater Nanjing Normal University.
Her poems are often published in important Chinese poetry and literature special issues as well as French newspapers and magazines.
Since the publication of the first personal poetry collection "China Red" in 1997, seven publications have been published, including "French Blue", "China Red" (2013), "The Door of the Soul, Covered" (2019), "The Exiled Soul" (2021), etc. A bilingual collection of personal poems, of which the Chinese-French version of "French Blue" debuted at the Paris Book Fair in March 2014.