The long poems of Aerdingfu Yiren are featured by a co-existence of majestic atmosphere and something kind and gentle. To sum up, we see the efforts of Chinese poets such as Yiren in creating long poems, which shows the possibility of producing excellent long poems by contemporary Chinese poets, in spite of the existing difficulties. Of course, such a possibility is to be realized by quite a few poets, which testifies the cruelty of history. In the universal law of subtraction, burial and oblivion become the attitude of history toward us; language and poetry is forever more ancient, and more vigorous than a country. The self and the world created by some poets with his words are to remain and to be remembered in history, and history is trying to find the lucky person, who is undoubtedly a traveler finding pain and coldness on the individual and epochal tracks. As a poet born in the beginning of 60s of the last century, Aerdingfu Yiren is unique in his poetry writing, which endows his poetry with a strong sense of cultural root-seeking (and with agricultural civilization and nomadic culture) and a writing impulse of national narration. As a Salar, Aerdingfu Yiren is easily taken as a minority poet and, living in Qinghai Province, he is also labeled as “western poet” or “frontier poet”. Of course, it does not matter whether to label Aerdingfu Yiren as a minority poet or as a “western poet”. In a further sense, it is his nationality and the cultural geography in west China that have in some degree shaped the poetry writing individuality of Aerdingfu Yiren, particularly of his long poems writing pedigree. But I tend to regard the identity of Yiren and the individuality of his long poems in a broader sense, because his long poems writing, in contemporary age, obviously has the value and significance of poetic Revelations. But this does not mean the
long poems writing of Aerdingfu Yiren is flawless and unassailable —his long poems writing through all these years, whether for the long poems writing tradition of contemporary China or for poems writing in a general sense, does possess a rich ore waiting for our rediscovery and recognition. What is exhibited in the long poems of Yiren is both mysterious metaphysics and the texture of strong reality, whether concerning the past memory and daily trivialities relevant to the poet’s existence, or concerning the scenes and events of more mottled history, nationality, and religiousness in experience and imagination. All of this, in fusing and questioning, exhibits total perception, historical sense, human solicitude, and religious beliefs which are rare in contemporary poets. The long poems writing of Aerdingfu Yiren, while pronouncing individual experience and imaginary perception of self, the world, existence, poetry, history, nationality, and religion, exhibits traditional mobility and realistic hardships in the context of industrialization and urbanization by means of concern and intervention, particularly the mottled, even barren humanity and soul in the age of quick advancement. The practice of long poems creation by Aerdingfu Yiren, through so many years, is more like a spiritual text which is individualized, historicized, living and allegorized, and like the soul up-grader of a poet.
