Flowers Bloom and Bloom: A Poetry Calendar of the Tang and Song Dynasties (2024), edited by Liu Shuli When I got the beautiful and elegant "calendar book" of "Flowers Blooming", I felt like I had a beautiful encounter with Jiachen Nian in advance. The sun and the moon are like sand, and they will eventually slip through the fingers, but the poetry and warmth of life will inevitably remain in this desk book. It is a wonderful idea to settle poetry and painting with the day, which reminds us to savor the eternal light and color from human nature in the gap of time.
The harmony of poetry and physics is deeply rooted in the cultural spirit of the Chinese, and in the treasure house of classical Chinese literature, we can see an astonishing number of poems related to astronomy, geography, solar terms, phenology, flowers and trees, etc., poets rhythmize and poetize nature, and establish their unbreakable belief in nature, spirituality, and daily life.
The author of this book, Professor Liu Shuli, has selected those poems and paintings that sing about the rhythm of nature and soothe the body and mind from the passing river of time, and placed them appropriately in the flow of the four seasons of the year, and made a new interpretation. The 24 solar terms, traditional festivals, and other important festivals are all carefully matched with appropriate poems and paintings. On July 22 of the Gregorian calendar (the seventeenth day of the sixth month of the lunar calendar), the author selected Yuan Zhen's "Song of the Twenty-four Qi Poems: The Great Heat in June". The poem says: "The third autumn of the great heat is approaching, and Lin Zhongjiu is moving in the summer." Guilun opens at midnight, when the fireflies shine in the sky. Melons and fruits invite Confucian guests, and mushrooms grow ink pools. On the silk yarn muddy roll, the wind blows through history. The author commented: "There are three waits for the great heat, one is for the rotten grass to be fireflies, the second is for the soil to moisten the heat, and the third is for the heavy rain." The last sentence says that the reader should roll up the veil and let the wind blow into the house, so that the books do not become damp and insects. Yuanzhu's solar term poems generally describe phenology and the Xi of the festival more accurately. "In the concise criticism, we know the common sense of phenology, and we can't help but compare the current heat in the heat of Yuanzhen, and the superimposed aesthetic image suddenly emerges. 
On the day after the great heat, the author made Cai Qu's "Summer Boarding Car Gai Pavilion" in the Song Dynasty pass through the paper of the calendar, accompanied by Qiu Ying's "Tongyin Day Quiet Map" in the Ming Dynasty, and suddenly there was a sense of Tongfeng cool. Then, the author wrote in the poetry review: "You don't have to work hard, just read behind closed doors, when you are tired of reading, you leave your books for a lunch break, wake up and face the waves, listen to the fishing flute, and your heart is not clean, how happy!This kind of cool sentence seems to have a bit of ancient meaning, and at the same time carries a sense of calm and happy contemporary.
Ming Qiu Ying Tongyin day and day still picture every page is a landscape, and it is where the emotional settlement lies. When you are identifying a certain day of the month and planning how to spend the day, you inadvertently break into a living world that is moved by the eternal heart and all things in nature. It's a very special aesthetic experience. In addition, the editor's comments and appreciation of the poems may also touch the heartstrings of readers. Without a sincere affection for nature, it is impossible to present the noble taste of the ancients. Opening the calendar, we can see that the poems and paintings illuminate each other, the present and the ancient silently communicate, and the victories are overlapping, and the afterglow is endless. For example, one day in the fourth month of the lunar calendar, you will read the poem "New Cool" by Xu Ji of the Song Dynasty: "The water is full of fields, the rice leaves are full, and the sunlight penetrates the trees and the smoke is low." The yellow warbler also loves the new cool and good, flying through the green mountains and crying in the shadows. It is the beautiful season when the rice leaves are green and grow towards the sun, and the green mountains and green waters are filled with water, and when you read this poem silently, you can also perceive the chirping of the yellow warbler, projected in the fields and waters. The author said in his commentary: "Cool is the feeling of the body, how to express the new coolness?".The poet concretizes it through the picture. Accompanied by the Ming Dynasty anonymous painting "Rock Gully Qinghui", the picture shows several people walking on the water, green mountains towering, and mist across the thin trees, as if to evenly paint the purer Qinghui on the surface of all things. The natural scenery was integrated into the poetry and painting by the ancients, and the poetry and painting generated each other, so that we also have a sense of understanding today. 
And on the first day of 2024 in the Gregorian calendar, you will turn to the "Spring Love" by Zhang Qi of the Tang Dynasty and the "Xue Yan Tu" by Leng Mei of the Qing Dynasty. "Spring Love" wrote: "The painting pavilion is still cold, and the old swallow returns in the new year." The plum blossoms are still with snow, and I haven't tried spring clothes. "Painting the pavilion is cold, plum blossoms with snow, spring clothes have not been tried, in this yin and yang waxing and waning, the poet describes the chaotic situation of if it is about to leave, if there is nothing, this is not only the beginning of the year on the calendar, but also the end of the real time, is a moment of eternity. The compiler chose this poem as the rhythm of the New Year's Day, which is lofty, and the beginning of a new time is not necessarily the vigorous and fierce strength of the universe, perhaps the silence and silence that contain energy, as the author said: "The plum blossoms blooming in Ling Xue have shown vigorous vitality." ”
Author's Affiliation: Institute of Chinese Culture, Beijing Language and Culture University).
|Related Reading:
Beautiful poetry blooms like a flower"Flowers in Bloom: A Calendar of Tang and Song Poetry (2024)" is available now.
The long-awaited beginning to come out - the 2024 Tang and Song Poetry Calendar is finally here.
"Flowers Bloom in the First Place: A Calendar of Tang and Song Poetry (2024)".Liu Shuli, Hardcover, 978-7-101-16366-78800 yuan
20% discount Printed by Chung Hwa Book Co., Ltd.】Flowers bloom the first new: Tang and Song Poetry Calendar (2024) (co-ordinating: Yibei;Editor: Siqi).