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这本双语诗集收录了阿芒20首诗作，有相近的题材或类主题因素，其中大部分我在诗人刚写下不久时就读到过，都非常喜欢，且总是能够在想起来时不断回到她们。阿芒诗歌的节奏，灵活有如轻盈的小鹿在森林里奔跳，又像顽皮的鸟雀飞动时，一阵悠哉一阵腾起。以灵敏、多变、自由的节奏感写下的诗句和诗节，完整呈现出阿芒独特的诗歌声音：成熟、细腻、任性、诙谐、性感、节制、明朗、深刻，从容，这诸多形容词的词义融为一体，方能显出阿芒诗歌声音的独特魅力。在记忆里，想起阿芒一首诗，就是回到阿芒的一个个词，短语，场景，最主要的，是回到阿芒轻逸、温暖、适度的诗歌音调中。一首诗的节奏依据诗人当时当刻的情绪乐理。在《我必须通过》中，是由肯定的情绪带领着，以短促的断句，简练的陈述展开；而在《姊姊妹妹考古队》中，是一种自豪和自信的口吻，诗句长短抑扬，宣告着姊姊妹妹们令人钦佩的挖掘工作；《他们坐在咖啡店内侧》这首的诗节则相对整饬，匀称的节奏体现观察的细致，不放过一个微妙的瞬间变化，而《女战车》里开头一个超长句就把洋溢着母爱的心情呈现得淋漓尽致。换个角度理解阿芒诗歌节奏和断句的关系，可以说，阿芒的诗歌语言带有鲜明的散文化特质。这种散文化在新诗史上，由周作人、郭沫若、艾青等诗人进行过自觉、深入的探索。到了阿芒这里，散文化更增加了依据情绪乐理的戏剧性，这样，断句可以是一个短语，一个词，甚至一个标点符号，都是为了增强丰富多样的诗性。阿芒的诗极具戏剧性，除了前面说到的声音（音调、节奏）外，诗中总有场景和行动，隐含的对话，内省式独白，虚拟角色的发声等。阿芒是一位技艺高超、思想成熟的诗人。无论选择什么素材，她都可以通过诗歌，把她看到的，想到的，以及刻苦玩味之后领会到的感情及其境界呈现给读者。说《女战车》集里的诗作有相近的题材或主题因素，不如说它们有共同的女性视角和女性意识，以及由此而对女性主题的开掘，包括女性对自己身体的赞美，因女儿而成长的母亲经验，姐妹情谊，女性自身的历史挖掘意识，女性对自我、儿童、爱情和战争的认识等等。从女性主义理论的角度看，这些主旨都曾得到过一些前辈思想家、文学家的探讨，而在阿芒的诗歌中这些并不只是一些认识，或经验的探讨记录，它们是诗人的生命本真性与想象力结合的结果。反复盘旋或闪过头脑中的词语（诗人写作的对象）总是在写下的一刻即发生形变。女儿的玩具战车变身为「女战车」，女儿俨然成了亚马逊女战士（《女战车》）；月经使流血但没有倒下的「我」产生了怀疑，「人，会不会是我杀的？」，而危险又具魅力的经血化身「罂粟」精灵，我的子宫也化身「海豚号」船只（《第二天》）；恋人在拥抱中意识到那一刻世上有好多人正经历其他悲惨的命运，死去的命运（《我紧紧抱你的时候这世界好多人死》）；姊姊妹妹考古队其实是女性自觉地探讨她们这一性的历史行动（《姊姊妹妹考古队》）；平安夜神秘的「她」到底做了什么，使电影剪接般的场面充满疑窦（《平安夜》）？阿芒擅长省略，也擅长布线，词语发生的形变总是能够打开诗的身体，如同诗本身长出枝桠，但又和诗作最初的构思念头相连。因此，阿芒用她超群的想象力使得诗思逼近存在的本真性，在自我完成中提炼出诗歌的性别之维。这个性别的维度与性别理论中已经形成的一些推论若即若离，更多地带有诗人观察世界的感性目光。女性诗歌，在当代文学中一直是兼具批评意识与性别反思传统的诗歌思潮。自从上世纪八十年代由翟永明、伊蕾、海男等诗人开创性的写作实践以来，已经深为广大大陆诗歌读者所接纳。在台湾，据说也有「女鲸诗社」的同仁们开创风气。毋庸置疑，《女战车》中阿芒的写作是对汉语文学这一传统版图的延伸和扩大。Foreword to Chariots of WomenThis bilingual collection includes twenty poems by Amang that share similar themes or subject matter. The enjoyment I found when reading several of these poems soon after their completion has been enriched by deeper reflection on them over the time since. Amang’s poetic cadence, agile as the slim and graceful fawn scampering in the forest, moves in fits and darts like the flight of carefree birds. With a nimble, changing, and liberal sense of rhythm, these verses and stanzas present an unique poetic voice: mature, exquisite, capricious, zany, sexy, restrained, bright, profound, and calm—only when merged can these various adjectives express the distinctive charisma of Amang’s poetic voice. To recall a poem by Amang is to return to each and every of her words, phrases, and scenes, and above all, to revisit her light, easygoing, warm, and moderate poetic tone. A poem’s tempo is the musical expression of the poet’s mood at the moment of its making. In “I Must Pass Through,” for instance, an assertive mood leads the way, punctuated by brief pauses in staccato statements, whereas a proud, self-assured voice in “The Archaeological Team of Sisters” announces—via the cadences of long and brief verses—an admirable excavation work by the sisters. On the other hand, stanzas in “They’re Sitting inside the Café” are relatively orderly, their regular rhythm embodying a meticulous observation that takes into account any subtle, momentary change, while a lengthy verse at the beginning of “Chariots of Women” vividly unfolds a heart brimming with motherly love. To understand, from another perspective, Amang’s poetic cadence, one may say that her poetic language contains a striking prose-like idiosyncrasy. Throughout the history of new poetry, poets such as Zhou Zuoren, Guo Moruo, and Ai Qing have consciously and intensely explored such prose-like tendency. Here, in Amang’s case, this penchant further enhances the dramatic nature in accordance with the musical structure of her moods, such that each pause can be a phrase or word; even a punctuation mark exists to bolster a rich and diverse poetic lyricism. Amang’s poems are highly dramatic. Besides the aforementioned voice (tone and cadence), there exists in her poetry scene and action, implied dialogues, introspective monologues, the vocalization of imaginary personae, and other elements of dramaturgy. A brillantly skillful and mature poet, Amang is able to convey to readers through poetry what she sees and thinks, as well as her feelings and their realms after an assiduous contemplation, regardless of the choice of material. Instead of stating that the poems in Chariots of Women share similar themes or subject matter, one might as well as say that they hold a common female viewpoint and consciousness, and thereby the investigation into women’s themes, including a woman’s praise of her own body, her motherhood maturing by way of her daughter, her sisterhood, the awareness and excavation of her own gender history, as well as her knowledge of self, children, love, and war. Although these are motifs that feminist theory has addressed before, Amang’s work bears the unique fruits of her authentic life experience and imagination. Words and phrases that flit through a poet’s mind tend to become deformed by the very act of being written down. And these deformations can always open up the poem’s body, like branches growing from it, yet connected to its initial ideas and conception. In “Chariots of Women,” for example, the daughter becomes an Amazonian woman warrior, with her “toy chariot” metamorphosizing into a “chariot of women.” And in “Day Two,” the speaker “keep[s] [her] grip,” but wonders if she “killed a person” when watching her menstrual blood incarnates in an “opium poppy” fairy and her womb turns into a Dolphin boat. In “So Many People Die While I’m Hugging You Tightly,” lovers realize—when hugging—that “so many people” are experiencing other tragic destinies, the destiny of death. The poet’s “archaeological team of sisters” is in fact a historic movement staged by women who consciously probe into their own gender. But what exactly has the mysterious “she” done on Christmas Eve, such that the montage-like scene in “Christmas Eve” would arouse such heightened suspicion? Amang excels at omission and routing. She uses imagination to bridge poetic thought with the authenticity of existence, refining the gender dimension of poetry through self-completion. Keeping inferences from gender theory at arm’s length, this gender dimension has more to do with the poet’s emotional gaze when observing the world. In contemporary literature, women’s poetry has always borne an ethos of critical awareness and gender-based reassessment. Since the innovative writing of Zhai Yongming, Yi Lei, Hai Nan, and other poets during the 1980s, women’s poetry has been widely embraced by readers in mainland China. In Taiwan, colleagues from the “Female Whale Poetry Society” seem to be pioneering the vogue, too. And there is no doubt that Amang’s Chariots of Women will play a role in broadening the tradition of Chinese literature.
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