辛泊平
曾几何时，“打工诗人”是一个震撼了诗坛神经的命名。在特定的语境下，这个命名隐含了诗人与诗歌评论家太多的情绪，比如对诗歌写作中泛滥的小资情调的厌倦，对技术主义者的怀疑，对诗歌远离生存现场与精神困境的不满，等等等等。时过境迁，这个命名还在用，但已经没有了当时的尖锐与力道。和所有的命名一样，在最初的新鲜和激动过后，最终产生影响的还是具体的文本，而不是简单的群体命名。所以，在我们阅读一个诗人的时候，那种命名只能是一个大致的参考，而不能是审美判断的唯一尺度。打工者是一种身份的确认，但打工者和打工者的价值取向和审美并不是所有人都必须遵守的合同与条款，他们的诗歌写作也肯定不是统一的流水线。当然，从题材上看，打工诗人的作品会有交叉。但那只是题材，具体写作上，每个人对生存状态的观察、对情感波动的反应、对语言与节奏的处理上肯定会各不相同。也正是在这种背景下，我更愿意面对一个个诗人时，有意避开那种命名，而从文本上去认识他的写作。比如说面对“打工诗人”周启早。
正如我前面提到的，作为“打工诗人”的周启早写了大量诸如《农民工》《纱厂女工》《女工阿燕》《女工咏叹调》等打工题材的诗作。但这些诗歌的视角我们必须清楚，它并不是诗人对亲身经历的叙述，而是一种存在距离的观察与体悟。他写农民工，其实是在写一个群体的生存状态——“千万只流浪的蚂蚁/逃亡在柏油马路上”。当然，诗人没有只是限于肉体上的描摹，他还切入了这群人的精神内核，那就是当他们像蚂蚁一样在马路上逃亡的时候，压迫感不仅仅来自他们对城市的恐惧，还有深植于心灵深处的乡愁。异乡的割裂感，对故乡的怀念，构成了他们情感世界的冷峻与温暖。可以这样说，在周启早的笔下，那种紧张逼仄的生产现场不是他要重点呈现的，他关注的是在这个现场挣扎的生命个体。
在《女工阿燕》里，我惊诧于诗人写苦难时的克制与冷静。一个来例假的女工，因为“害怕挨批罚款贴通告”，不敢请假，而是“安静地坐在凳子上等离岗证”，直“等到裤子开了花”。什么是苦难，苦难不只是饥饿和死亡，苦难还是为了生存对最基本的生理反应的压抑，是为了生存而放弃尊严的选择。在流水线上，生命个体不见了，取而代之的是机器般精确、机械的人的影子。女工阿燕的遭遇不是个案，而是千千万万在流水线上挥洒汗水与泪水的女工的缩影。因为，诗人知道，生产线上没有青春，它“苍白 乏力/一如槁木落叶般沉寂 萧条 落寞”（《产线上的青春》）。然而，诗人在处理这些让人疼痛的生存现场的时候，并没有加大语言的分贝，而是压低了声音。他没有汇聚苦难的群像，以排山倒海之势冲击读者的神经，而是尽量缩小范围，通过心理上的逼近完成了对苦难的准确聚焦。
他写下岗女工，写下岗女工和她一样下岗的丈夫，写她为了生存下去不得不沦落风尘，同样写得节制，但细节上的精准，同样赋予这首小诗以巨大的震撼力。夫妻二人每天早上出现在公园，丈夫骑自行车载着妻子，像上班一样准时，像下班一样自然。但是，生命中不能承受之重，肉体上的伤害与精神上的伤害没有因此而消失，它如影随形，如刀子切割他们卑微的分分秒秒。“看到闲逛溜达的中老年男人/她习惯性地伸出右脚/鞋底下写着30/如果对方摇头/她立马换上左脚/鞋底下写着20”（《下岗女工》）。我无法说清楚读这首诗时的复杂感受，但下岗女工这个换脚的小小动作确实在瞬间震撼了我，刺痛了我。她的羞涩，她的隐忍，她的尴尬，她的痛苦，她的不得不承受的命运，甚至她的小小的狡黠，都藏在这个细节中了。从某种意义上来说，周启早这种舍大取小的写法，也正好呈现出苦难的个体性与隐秘性。
同样，在《被辞退的环卫工》里，周启早依然没有改变叙事策略，只是更为简洁和疏朗——“扫了大半辈子落叶/最终把自己也扫成一枚落叶/落叶纷飞/她孤零零地漂在南国的大街上”，一首诗，两小节，四句诗，便写尽了一个女工卑微而又辛酸的一生。扫落叶为生的女人把自己也扫成了落叶，孤零零地在大街上漂，对此，再多的质询与控诉都是苍白无力的。这种无法回避也无法逆转的苦难，只能以简短的消息式的文字呈现，因为，同情已经无法表达，只能借助更为深沉的悲悯，才能为生命个体找到最终的归宿。也正是因为把苦难入怀的悲悯，让诗人笔下落叶的比喻，有了诗意的疼痛与想象的深远。
可以这样说，在周启早的诗歌里，女工一直是他关注的一个点，而节制与冷静是他叙写苦难的语调。这样处理，既是对书写对象的感同身受的体悟与尊重，也是诗歌元素与叙述风格的平衡与统一。在苦难的现场，打工者是弱势群体，那么，女性则是弱势群体中的弱势群体，她们身心的伤口，是更为普遍而又深切的现实存在。诗人这样选择，是对生存现场更为隐秘、更为脆弱的链条的一种关注，它体现了诗人对苦难细腻的体认与关怀。在底层，这些被娱乐化的电视节目遮蔽的存在，只能以细弱的呻吟自证。然而，我们不能因为这种声音的微弱便忽视它，终有一天，这些声音汇集在一起，便是一股汹涌澎湃的社会力量。而把这隐秘而又微弱的声音写出来，是诗人的良知与社会担当的最好体现。
“我在流水线上拧螺丝/螺丝在流水线上拧我/我们是两颗狭路相逢的螺丝/拼却一身的力气/拧血拧汗拧乡愁/却拧不出/那个原来的自我”（《我在流水线上拧螺丝》）在我看来，这首诗传递出来的信息，几乎是时代性的，不仅仅是流水线上拧螺丝的打工者，那些在都市乡村疲于奔命的人们莫不如是。螺丝仅仅是一个工业化时代的符号，它可以是堆积如山的文案，可以是危机四伏的职场，也可以是充满理想意味的校园，只要它强行裹挟着我们走向自己灵魂的反面，只要我们时刻遭受异化的危险，那么，它对我们来说便是一种压迫和伤害。也正因如此，我愿意从更广义的、为底层发声的意义上谈论周启早，而不是仅仅围绕“打工诗人”来展开。从他的诗歌文本中，我看到的是周启早对个体生命在现实中遭遇的凝视，对个体生命在流水线上失去自我时无助的悲悯，以及对个体尊严的坚守与呼唤。
2016/11/9
辛泊平，70年代生人，毕业于河北师范大学中文系。著有《读一首诗，让时光安静》（广西师范大学出版社）、《与诗相遇》（燕山大学出版社）等。诗文发表于《人民文学》《诗刊》《青年文学》等海内外百余家报刊，并入选多种选本，作品被《读者》《青年文摘》《中华文摘》(香港)等三十多家报刊转载，有作品被译介到国外。曾获河北省文艺评论奖，中国年度诗歌评论奖等。现居秦皇岛市，河北省青年诗人学会副会长。
Staring at the misery and dignity of the individual life
——Impression on Zhou Qizao’s poems
Xin boping
Translated by Song Deli
There was a time when “migrant job—hunting poet” was a name that shook the nerve of the poetic field. Under a particular language condition, this name implies too much mood of poets and poem critics, such as boredom to the petty bourgeoisie taste overflowing in poet writing, distrust to technocrats，the dissatisfaction to that poems have already distantly left the scene of the survival and spiritual predicament, etc. Circumstances change with the passage of time. But it is still used. Yet, it has not been as powerful as before. Like all named, at the beginning, it is very fresh. But after that, the final affection will implied in concrete texts but no simple names. So when we read a poet, that sort of names is only a rough reference but not the only ruler of aesthetic judgment. “Migrant job—hunter” is a confirmation of identity. But Migrant job—hunter and their value orientation are not the contract and terms which all people must abide by. And their poem-writings are certainly not on the unitive assembly line. As far as theme is concerned, there will be some intersects in the works of the migrant-job hunting poets. But that is only the problem of theme. When writing, there will be many differences in different cases, such as each one’s observation to the condition for living, each one’s reaction to emotional rise and fall, as well as the treatment of language and rhymes. It is just under this background, I am willing to avoid that sort of name when I face a poet, but try to understand the poet and his writing. Take “migrant-job huntering” poet Zhou Qizap, my case is like this.
As what I mentioned, as a “migrant-job hunting poet”, Zhou Qizao wrote may poems with the theme of migrant-job hunting, such Peasants worker, Cotton mill workwoman, Workwoman Ah Yan, Aria of workwoman, etc. But we must clearly understand that from the view point of poems, these poems are not a narration about what the poet personally experience but an observation and realization about an existence distance.
He wrote the migrant-job hunting workers but in fact he wrote the existence condition of a group——“Thousand stray ants/Escaping on the asphalt road” Certainly, the poet was not limited himself in portraying the flesh but pitched himself in spiritual core. When they escaped like ants on the way, their sense of pressure came not only from their fear to cities but also from nostalgia taking roots in their souls. The sense of separation in a foreign land and the memory of their home town formed the cold and warmth in their world of feelings. It can be said that under the pen of Zhou Qizao, the bad working condition was not the important problems he wants to display. What he is concerned about is the individual life struggling in the spots.
In Woman worker Ah Yan, I surprised about the poet’s restraint and calm when writing about the disasters. A woman worker in menstrual circle feared to be fined and so didn’t dare to ask for leaves but “peacefully and calmly sat on the bench waiting for leave certificate” till “her pants were stained with blood.” What is a disaster? Disasters included not only hunger or death but also the depression owing to the basic physiological reaction and the choice to give up dignity for living. On the assembly lines, the individual lives disappeared and were replaced by the machine-like accurateness and mechanical people’s figures. The suffering of woman worker Ah Yan was not an individual case but the miniature of thousands of thousands woman workers sprinkling with sweat and tears on the assembly lines. Because the poet knew that there was no youth on the assembly lines. It was pale, weak/ quiet, stagnant, lonely as dry wood and falling leaves. ” The youth on the assembly lines. But when handling with this scene of the survival which made people sad and painful, the poet didn’t increase language db. But instead, he pressed the sound. He didn’t gather the miserable groups so as to strike readers’ nerves with a great momentum, but instead, he tried his best to reduce the range and adopted mental force to complete the actual gathering of sufferings. He wrote about laid-off women worker, wrote laid-off women worker and her laid-off husband and wrote about that she had to sink into professions not socially respectable only for subsistence. He wrote them in control but he wrote the details accurately. He gave this short poem great shock power.
The couple appeared in the park every morning. The husband carried his wife on the bike he rode. It was as accurate as going to work and was natural as getting off work. But the burden that life couldn’t bear, the harm of flesh and spirit didn’t disappear for this. On the contrary, they were just like the shadow to follow the form, like the knife to cut them at any time. “When seeing the wandering middle-aged or old men/She chronically reached out her right foot/ 30 was written on the sole /If the man shook head/She reached her lift foot/20 was written on the sole.” (The laid-off woman worker) I couldn’t clear say my complex feelings when reading this poem. But this laid-off woman worker’s small action of changing her feet really shocked me and hurt my heart. She was shy; she endured; she was awkward; she was painful; she had the burden too heavy to carry; she even had to be somewhat sly. All these hid in this detail. In a sense, Zhou Qizao’s way of giving away big ones and taking small ones just presents the miserable individuality and secrecy.
In The dismissed sanitation workwoman, Zhou Qizao still didn’t change his policy of narration. The poem read: Having been sweeping fallen leaves for the greater part of her life/ She finally made herself into a fallen leave thru sweeping/The fallen leaves are fluttering about/She's lonely floating in the street of the South”. One poem, two paragraphs, four sentences. He only relied on these to have completely written the woman worker’s humble and hard life.Taking sweeping falling leaves as her livelihood, the woman made herself become a falling leave that drifted alone in the street. To this case, even more inquiries and complaints are useless. This sort of misery, which couldn’t be avoided and changed, could only be expressed in the form of short news, because sympathy couldn’t be used to express it. The end-result could only be found for individual life with the help of profound compassion. It was only this sort of compassion that made the poet to have poetic pains and far reaching imagination with the help of analogy of falling leaves
It can be said that in Zhou Qizao’s poems women are the important point which he pays much attention to. And control and calmness are the tone of his narration about misery. In this way, he not only expressed his awakening and respect to whoever he wrote about but also kept balance and unification of the poetic elements and the style of narration. In the miserable working site, the migrant-job hunting workers belong to vulnerable groups. And women are the most vulnerable ones among the vulnerable groups. The psychosomatic wound of theirs is a real existence which was paid much attention to. By making this choice, the poet meant that he not only paid great attention to the chain, much more secret, much more vulnerable in the site for survival, but also carefully realized and took care about the misery. At the bottom, the existence covered by the entertainment TV programs could only be self-identified with weak groan. But we cannot ignore it because of the weak voice. The day will come when all these voices were gathered together and became a roaring social power. And writing out these secret and weak sounds is the best embodiment of the poet’s conscience and social responsibility.
I tighten screws on the assembly line//Whereat screws tighten me, too/We're two screws meeting on a narrow path/Consuming all my energy/I tighten blood, tighten sweat and tighten nostalgia/But can never ever screw out/That primary ego (I tighten screws on the assembly line) In my view, the information transmitted from this poem is something with distinctive epochal features. This is the same cases not only of the migrant-job hunting workers working on assembly lines but also of the people on the hump both in the countryside and in the cities. Screw is only a symbol in the era of modernization. It can be a pile of documents. It can be a job market being threatened by growing crisis. It can be a campus filled with ideal meanings. So long as it forces us to go to the reverse side of our souls, so long as we suffer from the danger of dissimilation at any time, it is, to us, an oppression and harm. It is only because of this that I’m willing to talk about Zhou Qizao from the extensive meanings of making a sound for the grass-root class but not only from the point around “migrant-job hunting poet”. From his poems, I saw Zhou Qizao stare at the sufferings of individual life in reality and found Zhou Qizao’r helpless sympathy shown when the individual life lost his ego on the assembly line, as well as the persistence and summon to the individual dignity.
11/9/2016
Note:
Xin boping, born in 70s, graduated from the Chinese Department of Hebei Normal University. His works include Read a poem, let times calm (published by Guangxi Normal University Press), Meet with poems (published by Yanshan University Press), etc. His poetic proses were published by more than a hundred newspapers and periodicals both at home and abroad such as People's Literature, Poetry Monthly, Youth Literature and selected varied anthologies. His works were reprinted by over thirty newspapers and periodicals, such as The reader, Youth abstracts, China abstracts (Hong Kong). Some of his works were translated and introduced to foreign countries. He won Literary critics award of Hebei Province, China's annual poetry critics award, etc. He now lives in Qinghuangdao City as the deputy leader of Young poet society of Hebei Province.
联系客服
