You are at this end, I am at that end is from "Nostalgia" by the modern poet Yu Guangzhong.

Original text

Nostalgia

When I was a child

Nostalgia is a small stamp

I am here

My mother is over there

After growing up

Nostalgia is a narrow ticket

I am over here

p>

The bride is over there

Later

Nostalgia is a short grave

I am outside

Mother Inside

And now

Nostalgia is a shallow strait

I am on this side

The mainland is on the other side

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January 21, 1972

"Nostalgia" is a modern poem written by the modern poet Yu Guangzhong in 1972. In the poem, the temporal words "when I was a child", "when I grew up", "later" and "now" are used throughout the poem. Through real objects such as stamps, ship tickets, graves and straits, the abstract nostalgia is embodied and summarized by the poet. The long life course and the endless nostalgia for the motherland reveal the poet's deep sense of history. The language of the whole poem is simple and straightforward, and the emotions are profound.

Creative background

The poem was written in 1972. Yu Guangzhong's ancestral home is Yongchun, Fujian. He left the mainland for Taiwan in 1949. Due to political reasons at that time, Taiwan was isolated from the mainland for a long time, resulting in Yu Guangzhong not returning to the mainland for many years. He has always missed his relatives and longed for the reunification of the motherland and the reunion of his relatives. In a strong sense of homesickness, the poet wrote this poem in his old residence on Xiamen Street in Taipei.

Appreciation

"Nostalgia" is a poem in Yu Guangzhong's collection of poems "White Jade Bitter Melon". Together with "Folk Songs", "Four Rhymes of Nostalgia" and "Luo Erwazi", they are also written by Yu Guangzhong. A classic piece of folk song that expresses nostalgia.

Yu Guangzhong is known as the poet who "touched hundreds of millions of Chinese with his poems about nostalgia". "Nostalgia" is an unforgettable theme in many of his poems. "Nostalgia" gives a new interpretation to an abstract subject that is difficult to depict but is covered by a large number of depictions. In terms of imagery, four common objects in life are selected: "stamps", "ship tickets", "graves" and "straits", giving them rich connotations, so that the four originally unrelated objects are connected by the specific emotion of nostalgia. Next, chant repeatedly. Yu Guangzhong himself once said that this poem is "quite realistic": when he was a child, he went to boarding school and had to correspond with his mother; after marriage, he went to the United States to study and returned to Taiwan by ship; later, his mother died and he lost maternal love forever. The first three lines of the poem are all about women. In the last line, I think of the "big mother" like the motherland, and then the artistic conception and ideas suddenly become clear, and I have the sentence "Nostalgia is a shallow strait".

In terms of content, in chronological order, from "young son Oedipus" to "youth lovesickness", to the "life and death gap" in adulthood, to the feelings for the motherland, the evolving emotions gradually Rising embodies the vicissitudes of the poet's entire life experience from childhood to old age. The different stages of nostalgia are condensed at both ends: I - mother; I - bride; I (birth) - mother (death); I (wanderer) - mainland (motherland). The object of nostalgia ranges from the concrete "township" to the abstract national "township", from a regional hometown to a historical hometown and a cultural hometown. "Nostalgia" gradually accumulates rich connotations and expressive power.

In terms of poetic form, the four paragraphs are basically consistent in word count and sentence structure: "...(time adverbial), nostalgia is...(as the carrier of 'nostalgia' that is the embodiment of imagery), I Over here,... (the specific object of 'nostalgia') over there". Completed in one go, going back and forth, it seems to be a song and three sighs of emotion, with lingering sounds that last forever.

The language of poetry is pure and light, straightforward and meaningful. Adjectives with overlapping sounds such as "small", "narrow", "dwarf" and "qianqian" are used to modify the central image and enhance the vividness of the language.

In terms of artistic style, this poem is contrary to the poet's early "modern period" style of deliberately hammering out words and sentences, painstakingly managing images and contradictory grammar, and pursuing the effect of defamiliarization to make shocking words. Instead of seeking esoteric features, we pursue a tranquil and harmonious aesthetic style. Using simplicity to replace complexity, using simplicity to win, can be regarded as the most gorgeous, and return to plainness.

Influence on later generations

"Nostalgia" has been selected into the middle school Chinese textbooks of the Chinese Publishing House and the middle school Chinese textbooks of the People's Education Publishing House.

About the author

Yu Guangzhong (1928~2017) was originally from Yongchun, Fujian. In 1947, he studied in the Foreign Languages ??Department of Jinling University and transferred to Xiamen University the following year. In the same year, he went to Hong Kong with his parents and to Taiwan the following year. He graduated from the Department of Foreign Languages ??and Literature of National Taiwan University in 1952 and became the editor-in-chief of "Blue Star" weekly in 1957. In 1959, he received a Master of Arts degree from the University of Iowa in the United States. Chief editor of "Modern Literature" and "Literary Star". From 1974 to 1985, he served as professor of the Chinese Department of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. In 1985, he returned to Taiwan to teach. He has published poetry collections such as "In the Age of the Cold War", "White Jade Bitter Melon", "Sirius", "Ode to Bauhinia", and "Night Watch".