‘Song of Inner Mongolia’ seminar held to celebrate prairie culture

A book seminar has been held for the well-known poet and journalist Wu Ziran’s latest volume of poems, “Song of Inner Mongolia”.

The seminar was co-hosted by Chinese Poetry, the Tianjin Writers' Association, the Inner Mongolia Writers' Association, and the Baihua Literature and Art Publishing House, and was attended by over 40 writers and poets.

Wu Ziran began to write poetry in the 1980s, and since then has published more than 500 poems in magazines and newspapers, as well as a collection of poems titled “Red Cherry with Tears”. His book "Ziran's Poetry" was published in 2017 and was shortlisted for China's prestigious Lu Xun Literature Prize the next year.

The latest book includes more than 100 poems representing his thoughts on the grasslands, mountains, and culture of his hometown in Inner Mongolia, and on the Mongolian horse spirit. Readers can sense the feelings he holds about the magnificent Mongolian plateau.

Gidi Majia, vice chairman of the Chinese Writers' Association, said: "Born in Inner Mongolia. Wu Ziran's collection of poems is about his unique feelings about the grasslands of Inner Mongolia. It can be said to be a collective memory of grassland life. His works are also influenced by Mongolian folk songs, and his imagination is rich and lyrical. I think it is necessary for contemporary poetry to learn from these songs and excellent national classics."

Some sections of Mongolian language are interspersed in the poems, with annotations added at the end to aid in interpretation. The book also offers some poems in both Chinese and Mongolian, which shows the poet’s deep feelings for his mother language and increases the poems’ impact on cultural memory.

Based on Wu’s love of this land, the poems not only express the author’s subjective mentality and his personal feelings, but also delineate the development and changes of China’s reform and opening-up over the past 40 years.

The poems, which are derived from Mongolian long-tunes and music, also reveal big things from small perspectives, and encourage people to strive sincerely for a better life.