Chapter 608: Three Musketeers, Losing Two
Misty poetry was a bug-like existence in China's cultural circle in the 1970s and 1980s.
It was rejected by mainstream poetry, but it managed to expand its readership to a larger audience than mainstream poetry.
In that era, the poets of Misty Poetry had an influence comparable to that of idols. With a single call, countless readers would go crazy for them.
Haizi was later regarded as a representative of Misty Poetry. When people talked about Misty Poetry, they would always mention him. However, he actually became famous many years later than Bei Dao, Shu Ting and other representative poets of Misty Poetry.
Moreover, Misty Poetry began to decline as early as 1982 and completely disintegrated by the mid-1980s.
Later, there emerged the late Misty Poetry or Cultural Poetry with Jiang He and Yang Lian as the source, and a new wave of avant-garde poetry began to brew and grow. This type of poetry was mainly born on campus and after the mid-1980s it became a new trend of poetry experimentation.
Haizi is actually the representative poet of the later Misty Poetry.
Even before his death, he had only compiled and printed his own poetry collections at his own expense, and had never published a single collection of poetry.
Therefore, Haizi's fame among poetry lovers of this era is far less than that of later generations.
Zhou Jun is obviously a senior poetry lover, and he is deeply upset about Haizi's death.
It is now the early 1990s. Although the influence of Misty Poetry can no longer be compared with that of previous years, its influence on campus cannot be underestimated.
Zhou Jun's proposal reminded Lin Weimin that although the Misty Poetry School is now in decline, its once powerful influence was firmly in existence and it still has a fairly large readership.
Lin Weimin agreed to publish a collection of poems for Haizi, but he wanted more than just that.
We can take this opportunity to gather together all the classic poems produced by the Misty Poetry School over the years, starting with Haizi's works.
Lin Weimin asked his colleagues in the planning office to contact Luo Yihe and Xichuan, but Li Qingquan, who had a 3:7 split hairstyle, told Lin Weimin: "Editor-in-chief, Luo Yihe has passed away."
"Dead? When did it happen?"
"The year before last, when Haizi passed away."
Lin Weimin grumbled in his heart that Zhou Jun’s information was not accurate!
"Then contact Xichuan."
"good."
After talking with his colleagues in the planning office, Lin Weimin found Mo Wenzheng from the poetry group.
In the early years, there were many poets in the Guowen Society, including Tu An, Lu Yuan, Niu Han, etc., who were all influential figures in the Chinese poetry world.
Therefore, the poetry group of Guowen Publishing House is also a well-known presence in the domestic publishing industry.
Now that generations of elderly people have retired, the leader of the poetry group has become Mo Wenzheng, who is also a poet and has published many poetry collections.
Guowen Publishing House is going to publish a collection of Misty Poetry, and Mo Wenzheng, as the head of the poetry group, will definitely participate in the editing and review. He is now nearly sixty years old, and his creative style is very different from Misty Poetry, so Lin Weimin must communicate with him in advance to avoid making the old comrade feel uncomfortable.
After listening to Lin Weimin's words, Mo Wenzheng knew that Lin Weimin was respecting him. Although he was an old-school poet, he was not opposed to obscure poetry and had edited Xichuan's poetry collection in later generations.
He smiled and said, "It's no problem to entrust this task to our poetry group. We will definitely complete it with quality and quantity."
With his statement, Lin Weimin smiled and nodded, "Then I feel relieved."
Two days later, Xichuan walked into the Guowenshe building with some nervousness.
He, Haizi and Luo Yihe were all classmates at Yanda University. In the mid-to-late 1980s, the three of them were known as the "Three Musketeers of Yanda University." Now that Haizi and Luo Yihe have passed away, he has been silent for several years.
Xichuan graduated from Yenching University in 1985. In addition to his job, he spent most of his time on poetry creation and poetry publications.
In the 1980s, readers' fanatical love for poetry was beyond description, but there were not many real poetry magazines in China. Most of them came from university magazines, or were folk magazines spontaneously participated in by poets or poetry lovers. In recent years, Xichuan has participated in the editing of the poetry magazine "Tendency".
"Tendency" is a poetry magazine co-founded by Xichuan and his friends Ouyang Jianghe, Chen Dongdong and others. It was founded in 1988 and has been quite famous in the domestic poetry circle in recent years. It's a pity that it was just discontinued this year.
For poets like Xichuan, Guowenshe represents not only the highest hall of the domestic literary world, but also some other perspectives.
Most poets, no matter what their work is like, always stay outside the mainstream literary circle in terms of literary creation. Therefore, they always have an attitude of both envy and disgust towards organizations like Guowen Publishing House. In short, it is very contradictory.
Xichuan didn't expect that he would be invited directly to the editor-in-chief's office after entering the building. When he saw Lin Weimin, he became even more nervous.
The circle of poets is very small, so he knows very few writers, let alone writers of Lin Weimin's level.
Although Xichuan likes poetry, he has also read a lot of Lin Weimin's works over the years.
He stepped forward and shook hands with Lin Weimin. "Hello, Mr. Lin. I really like your book "Hunting."
Lin Weimin smiled and asked, "Not many people have read this novel, right?"
"Hunting" was published in "Contemporary" a few years ago, and immediately caused extremely intense debate in the literary circles and among the public. Finally, considering the impact, Lin Weimin decided to shelve this work for a period of time and publish it ten years after its publication.
“Few people saw it at the time, and no one expected you to decide not to publish it. I had just started working at that time and was busy, so I didn’t buy that issue of Contemporary. Later I borrowed it from a classmate.
You don’t know that many people wanted to read your novel at that time, but the copies of Contemporary had already been snapped up. Several junior students from our school’s magazine got together and used the mimeograph equipment to print hundreds of copies of Hunting, which was enough to satisfy the needs of the students.”
When Nishikawa talked about this, there was a look of nostalgia on his face, and some pride in it.
In his heart, Lin Weimin just wanted to complain that Yan University students openly pirated books. Is this a distortion of human nature or a decline in morality?
After exchanging a few pleasantries, Lin Weimin and Xichuan got down to business.
Before coming here, Xichuan already knew that Guowen Publishing House was going to publish a collection of Misty Poetry, but when he heard it from Lin Weimin in person, he still couldn't help but get excited.
Although Lin Weimin said that he wanted to publish Haizi's poems, it did not hinder Xichuan's happiness.
Misty Poetry has been around for nearly thirty years. Since the mid-1980s, more and more publishing houses have been willing to publish the works of poets, including publications such as "People's Literature". In previous years, it also published poems by Shu Ting and others, but the significance represented by Guowen Publishing House is unique after all.
The fact that a work can be published by Guowen Publishing House largely represents that the author has been accepted by the mainstream literary circle, and that the quality of the work has reached a certain level and has been recognized.
"I asked you to come here this time mainly because I heard that you were the one who sorted out Haizi's posthumous works. So our Chinese Literature Press needs your help to publish his works."
Xichuan said: "After Haizi passed away, Yihe and I were responsible for organizing his works. In fact, it was mainly Yihe who did this work. He worked hard for this matter. I really didn't expect that he would pass away so suddenly..."
When Xichuan said this, his face was full of loneliness.
He had a close relationship with Haizi and Luo Yihe, and each of them was talented. They jointly devoted themselves to the poetry movement in the mid-to-late 1980s when Misty Poetry was declining. They used their talents to inject new vitality into this school of poetry and became representatives of the post-Misty Poetry era.
But no one could have imagined that two of the Three Musketeers would pass away within a few months, and both died young. One can imagine how much of a blow this was to Xichuan.
After he came out of his depressed mood, he said to Lin Weimin: "It is a great thing that Guowen Publishing House can publish Haizi's works. I believe he will be very happy if he knows about it. But his family should be informed about this matter. After I tell them, please let the publishing house communicate with Haizi's family about the payment."
"It's better not to bother two people with one thing. Please help me pass the message on. The standard for the manuscript fee can be paid according to the 8% royalty share. As for the number of copies printed, it is not yet determined."
When Nishikawa heard that the royalties would be used to pay for his writing, he was delighted.
Because of the special genre of poetry, the standard of royalties when it is published or published is often very different from that of novels, essays, etc.
The royalties that Guowen Publishing House wants to share have nothing to do with the number of words or lines in the poem. Instead, the money will be divided according to the number of copies printed, which is of course beneficial to the author.
"Teacher Lin, I would like to thank you on behalf of Haizi's family." Xichuan stood up and bowed to Lin Weimin.
Haizi was born in the countryside. He was well-known in the area since he was a child. Later, he was admitted to Yan University at the age of fifteen. After graduating in 1983, he was assigned to China University of Political Science and Law.
His life should have been bright and his family had high hopes for him, but they never thought he would leave the world in that way.
Haizi is gone, but he still has his parents in the countryside.
If his collection of poems can be published, the proceeds will be able to help his parents spend their old age in peace.
"There's nothing to thank me for. When we publish other people's works, how can we not pay them for their works?" Lin Weimin said with a smile.
Then he took Xichuan to the poetry group's office.
"Teacher Mo, this is the poet Xichuan. He has been organizing Haizi's poems over the past two years. This time we are going to publish Haizi's poetry collection, and I specially invited him to be our consultant. From now on, the poetry collection will be handed over to you two to coordinate."
After introducing Mo Wenzhen and Xichuan to each other and assigning the work to them, Lin Weimin prepared to return to the office.
When he reached the door, he ran into Li Xin coming out of the office. Seeing Lin Weimin, Li Xin said, "Teacher Lin, I was just looking for you!"
"What's wrong? What happened?" Lin Weimin asked.
(End of this chapter)
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