Ordinary people who write poems on Kuaishou, whose poetry collection makes netizens cry

1. A collection of poems by ordinary people turns ordinary life into poetry

The name "A Person Should Live Like a Spring" comes from the poem "A Person Should Live Like a Spring" by Changfeng@物语, a history teacher in the mountainous area of ​​Guizhou.

The 33-year-old spent his childhood in a mud house in a mountain village and on the back of a buffalo. Now, he wants to write poetry to remember them. He wrote in the poem:

A person should live like a spring

Extract sweetness from a pink flower

Let life break out of the ground with rich poetry.

Even if the old friend is far away

A story about one person becoming another person

A name becomes another person's concern

Even if the flowers from the previous night are counted by the breeze

The barren pen tip, after drinking late at night

There is no other reason why spring cannot be described

Just need some more time to knit

Waiting for the breeze, on a quiet afternoon

Travel with the years

The poem expresses the history teacher's optimism, strength, and hope. The poem is named to remind us to observe carefully in the days ahead and discover greater possibilities in the world. A person should also live like a spring.

In addition to this poem, Kuaishou Human Rearview Mirror Studio also collected 214 poems from 52 Kuaishou creators . These 214 poems were selected from nearly a thousand poems on the Kuaishou platform.

The starting point of Kuaishou's launch of this poetry collection is to prevent "poetry", a genre that originates from life, from being classified as an elite expression of a few people . Because we need these real and natural words to record the happiness, pain, struggle, fragility, courage in our lives...

In this 6-minute video, they recited their own poems, some smiled shyly, and some couldn't help shedding tears. In the video, there are also roaring machines and noisy markets, intoxicating breezes and gentle sunsets.

Those who wrote these poems come from all walks of life, including deliverymen, vegetable farmers, painters, assembly line workers, businessmen, supermarket employees, teachers, college students, and even full-time housewives and left-behind elderly people.

The scene for writing poetry is not fixed: at home, in the cornfield, on the way to deliver food, next to a baby, in a massage parlor, next to a blackboard, in a sheep pen, in a mine, at a takeaway counter, at a street stall... Kuaishou uses a video to record the environment in which they create.

Although they are busy with their lives, they still show their unique creative talents in literature. The day-to-day labor may trap their lives, but it cannot trap their souls that yearn for freedom. They use poetry as a free medium to tell their ordinary but trivial lives.

Wang Jibing, a 55-year-old delivery man, is called the "takeout poet" by the media . He has written thousands of poems on cigarette boxes and waste newspapers, and published his first collection of poems, "People in a Hurry", in 2023. The poems have been widely circulated on the Internet, with 20 million readers, and are praised by readers as "the poetry of real workers."

The inspiration for his poems comes from his life. Racing against time, the weather, and the orders that are about to expire in the system is his normal work. Every poem he wrote on the road is like a romantic invoice he issued for his life. This includes the song "Midnight Pusher" in the video, in which he recorded a delivery man pushing an electric bike.

Like a wandering poet from the lower class of China, he records our busy life in the world. For those who are in a hurry, there are no four seasons, only one stop and the next.

After the Human Rearview Mirror Bot released this video, many people were moved to tears by the poetry and the story behind it, and the video was forwarded more than 11,000 times.

Even Wang Yitong, the screenwriter of "Space Exploration Editorial Department", was excited after reading it. As he said, poetry belongs to everyone. The purpose of writing poetry is to let it fly off the paper. A person should also live like a spring.

This kind of poetry may seem immature and clumsy, but poetry is essentially a way for humans to express their emotions. Everyone can write it, and everyone can be a poet.

2. Break the barriers of life and live like a spring

Some people say that poetry is "a portable refuge". In the "folds" of life, everyone has his or her own poem.

Kuaishou made a set of posters based on their stories, and the poster copy showed their real life and the poetry in their eyes.

No matter if there is anyone around me

This is also my evening alone

I'm a dancing queen now

Jumping in the wind, jumping on the water

Dancing in the golden light

It looks like the magpie standing on the ridge of the field.

A vegetable farmer born in the 1960s from Dezhou, Shandong, writes poems in the fields and in front of her vegetable stall. She writes about her daily life working on a tricycle and depicts the romance of a person.

I sold thirteen hours a day to the factory

Two hundred dollars in return

These two hundred dollars

It's like I mortgaged my dignity

Helped me redeem my dignity

A 34-year-old former wire harness factory worker in Changchun, Jilin, was trapped on the "assembly line" due to the pressure of life, but he was unwilling to live his life like this.

I want to draw countless of myself

One writes poetry, the other studies

One sings, one composes

One cooks, one does laundry

One mopping the floor, one working in the field

One, one

Draw countless versions of yourself...

Han Shimei, a 52-year-old peasant woman from Nanyang, Henan, escapes the trivialities of life and the shackles of marriage by writing poetry.

Or, build an orchard on the manuscript paper

Your experiences, what you have seen, and the echo of the bird's wings,

Is the best nourishment

A disabled shepherd spends his days with his sheep, but his heart seems to hold the whole world.

The pressure of life cannot resist their passion. Yuan Shan, a 66-year-old retired worker, read a copy of the Xinhua Dictionary to pieces in one year in order to write poetry. Shi Xinxin, a blind masseur, writes poetry to touch life in her spare time. Their poetry comes from life, and the materials of life provide the soil for their creation, making these poems full of vitality.

Many works are very down-to-earth and are a direct presentation of the poet's daily life. This may be the true appearance of "poetry". It is those undecorated words that are real and simple enough to touch people's hearts.

Poetry is the meditation of an individual, and also depicts the collective image of society. This collection of poems by ordinary people also reflects social problems to a certain extent, such as migrant workers, aging parents, and left-behind children. These vivid words also record the precious emotions of the times.

They are not only people who write poems, but also familiar and specific people in our lives. There must be many poets waiting to be discovered around us. They may be your relatives or the cleaning lady you met on the roadside. They are all around us.

Even if they don't have the conditions to create, they can write poetry through mobile phone memos, Moments, Weibo, and Kuaishou.

Through this video, Kuaishou encourages more people who love poetry creation to participate in writing poetry, and not let the "bitterness" of life drown out the poetry in their hearts. Instead, they should have poetry in their hearts and scenery in their eyes.

3. The surge of poetry writing on social media explores new possibilities for poetry dissemination

This generation of young people are not poets, but they are keen on writing poetry.

Poetry is popular among young people not only on Kuaishou, but also on other social networks.

Since Dai Jianye and the B-station UP host "Mr. Youshan" launched the "B-station Poetry Conference" in 2021, they have received tens of thousands of poems from netizens. Not only has it formed a craze on the station, it has even become a hot search.

Xiaohongshu held online activities such as the "Xiaohongshu Poetry Contest", attracting tens of thousands of poetry submissions.

In 2022, the poetry collection "Whales Comfort the Sea" by poet Yan Qi, published by Changjiang Literature and Art Publishing House, became popular due to the recommendation of celebrity bloggers on Xiaohongshu and Weibo, with cumulative sales of nearly 40,000 copies. Actor Li Xian also recommended it on his Weibo, further promoting the popularity of poetry.

It can be said that poetry is becoming daily life and gradually becoming a lifestyle for young people.

Why do young people like poetry? For them, writing a poem is not about becoming a poet, but about expressing their own life.

In today's highly inward-looking society, young people have nowhere to release their stress. With the help of poetry, a lightweight pure literary genre, they can express their inner emotions.

Behind the surge of poetry writing on new media such as Kuaishou, Bilibili, and Xiaohongshu, the essence is that young people are returning to their emotions, and a cultural trend of cherishing daily life is emerging.

Nobel Prize winner in Literature and Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska wrote in her poem "Possibilities", "I prefer the absurdity of writing poetry to the absurdity of not writing poetry." This may be the reason why young people are keen on writing poetry.

Relying on the professional content creation capabilities of many poetry and literature writers and institutions, as well as the content operations of the platform, Kuaishou has now built a relatively complete poetry and literature vertical content creation ecosystem and created Kuaishou's in-site literary IP.

IV. Conclusion

Short video platforms have always been controversial due to their characteristics of being "short, flat and fast". Kuaishou's combination of poetry and short videos not only brings poets closer to readers, allowing more people to be comforted by poetry, but also allows us to see the countless people on the Kuaishou platform, giving creators such as courier poets and takeaway poets more opportunities to be seen.

This is not only an exploration of the cooperation model between the literary field and commercial platforms, but also another attempt to spread poetry on new media platforms.

Author: Ouyang Rui

WeChat Official Account: 4A Advertising Copywriter