Chapter 28: A Poem That Startles the Gathering

Page (1/3)

Liu Yimin had just locked his bicycle when several members of the Cultural Center’s creative group, along with Director Zhang, hurried over to him.

“Old Zhang, look at my bicycle! If I hadn’t gone in time, I wouldn’t have gotten it today,” Liu Yimin said, patting the leather seat, which was as supple as a beauty’s hips.

“Yimin, forget the bicycle, everyone’s waiting for your poem! Hurry, let us see it!” Old Li, who was usually the most prone to grumbling, grabbed Liu Yimin’s hand and tried to drag him anxiously toward the dormitory building.

“Comrade Li, take it easy!” The hand Old Li usually used for writing squeezed his wrist so tightly it hurt.

Still, Old Li clung to Liu Yimin, pulling him toward the dormitory. “I can’t take it easy! Yimin, our Cultural Center depends on you.”

“Old Li, wait here for me. I’ll run faster on my own.”

Liu Yimin dashed to his dormitory, took the manuscript from his desk, and returned to the creative room, where everyone gazed eagerly at the pages in his hands.

Their eyes were wide and bright. Director Zhang wiped sweat from his brow. “Yimin, start reading, quick!”

Old Li swallowed and echoed him, rare for once not taking a jab at Director Zhang.

“I’ll begin, so listen well!” Liu Yimin smiled serenely and began to read in a clear, resonant voice.

[My Motherland, My Beloved Motherland!
I am the worn-out old waterwheel by your riverbank,
Spinning weary songs for hundreds of years;
I am the blackened miner’s lamp on your brow,
Lighting your slow and groping crawl through the tunnels of history;
I am the shriveled wheat ear, the broken roadbed;
The barge on the silted wharf, etching the towline deep in your shoulder;
Motherland! I am poverty, I am sorrow.
I am the painful hope of generations unending—
...
Motherland! I am one of your billion, the sum of your vast nine-million-six-hundred-thousand square kilometers;]

Page (2/3)

[You have nursed
My confusion, my contemplation, my passion,
With your scarred and battered breast;
So take from my flesh and blood your abundance, your glory, your freedom;
...]

Liu Yimin had experience reciting poetry and was intimately familiar with the cadences, so he didn’t merely read—he recited with true feeling.

This lyric poem was written by Shu Ting in 1979. He had changed the line “I am the shriveled rice ear” to “wheat ear,” more fitting for a farm boy from the North who’d only ever seen wheat.

When he finished, the creative group’s office was silent as a grave; you could hear a pin drop. It was a long moment before Director Zhang reacted.

“Yimin, keep reading!”

“That’s all.”

“That’s all?” Director Zhang’s voice rose sharply.

“That’s all.”

Clap, clap, clap, clap, clap! “Excellent! Wonderful!” The seven members of the creative group clapped with all their might, and Director Zhang joined in with equal enthusiasm. They didn’t stop until their hands were as red as their flushed faces.

“Yimin, may I see your draft?” Old Li asked excitedly, looking at Liu Yimin with a touch of pleading in his eyes.

“This poem is grand in scale, yet full of hope—a truly great poem. The old waterwheel by the river—I remember there’s one just like it in our county, abandoned for years. The blackened miner’s lamp—it’s clearly about our own coal mines! Comparing the mine tunnel to the tunnel of history—what a metaphor. I could never come up with something so good in my entire life. Yimin, I really wonder how your mind works.”

“Not in your life—eight lifetimes wouldn’t be enough,” Old Li quipped sarcastically.

That was Old Sun’s line; normally, he’d answer back, but now he only chuckled, squeezed closer to the manuscript, and craned his neck for a better look.

Someone’s head blocked his view, and he irritably pushed it aside.

“Is this any way to behave? Back off, all of you!” Director Zhang pushed through the crowd, snatched the draft, and held it up to read.

“Not bad, not bad at all. This single poem is worth more than half a lifetime of work for many people, even a whole lifetime. Especially the line ‘I am one of your billion, the sum of your vast nine-million-six-hundred-thousand square kilometers’—it’s so powerful. The beginning writes of the confusion of youth, but it ends full of hope. After the Four Greats stepped down, our country is filled with hope. In the end, it expresses the patriotic ambition of the younger generation—rising from the individual to the nation. Truly, a great poem.”

Page (3/3)

Director Zhang’s analysis drew many nods. Then, excitedly, he asked, “Yimin, which magazine are you going to submit this to?”

“I’m planning to send it to Poetry Journal. It’s the country’s leading poetry magazine—most influential.”

“Exactly! This should go to Poetry Journal. Such a masterpiece would be wasted on a minor publication.” Director Zhang slapped the table so hard it rang out.

With that, he pulled Liu Yimin off to the post office. Only after seeing Liu Yimin write the address on the envelope—“Renmin Cultural Center, Wang Songnan Road, Ruxian, Luocheng, Yu Province”—did Director Zhang feel relieved.

He grinned like a child with a new toy. Liu Yimin then asked the postal worker for another sheet of paper and wrote, “Please indicate the author’s affiliation as Ruxian Renmin Cultural Center upon publication.”

“Yimin, forgive us for our excitement. The people in our center haven’t exactly covered themselves in glory. I’ve been director for years, working tirelessly, and this was the one wish I never managed to fulfill. If I can’t do it, I’ll have no face to meet Marx in the afterlife. Though, honestly, at my level, I doubt I’d get to see Marx anyway.”

Director Zhang actually managed a joke, then added, “On my way to work today I passed the Revolutionary Committee. The director there asked about you—heard you took the college entrance exam and was thrilled. He even told the Education Bureau to check last year’s results to see how likely you are to succeed this year.”

Liu Yimin was speechless.

What hope could they glean from last year’s zero score?

When they returned to the Cultural Center, the group was still in high spirits, discussing Liu Yimin’s poem. Old Li’s voice was the loudest, his knack for sarcasm now turned to praise, still as sharp as ever.

“Comrades, you may discuss the poem, but only within our creative group. Once outside, remember to keep it confidential! You’re all old hands, so I won’t spell it out—you know what I mean!

“Comrades, let’s all learn from Comrade Liu Yimin and strive to shine for the people in the arts.”

Director Zhang was a good man, though sometimes he liked to rally everyone with a few slogans.

In the days that followed, Liu Yimin continued writing and discussing creative work with the group. Thanks to his reports, quite a few people now went out to the production teams to gather material, no longer just wandering up and down the main street, barely getting their steps in.

September was fast approaching, and the winds of impending exam results grew ever stronger. Every college candidate—and even members of the Revolutionary Committee—grew increasingly anxious.

The committee director was worried too. Hearing that the county’s well-known writer Liu Yimin had taken the exam, he thought, “If he can write such fine novels, his test scores must be good.” So he looked up last year’s results, but was dumbfounded to find a score of zero.