这张照片是8年前在美国一个咖啡馆进行open mike诗歌表演时所摄，当时（现在也仍然如此）很多咖啡馆或酒吧或书店都有诗社，经常和音乐表演一起，每星期定期活动。大家都是有话要说，有感而发，聚到一起，在台上表达释放自己，对周围观众也是极好的现场艺术体验，沟通带来享受或震动或净化或思考。这是真正的自发的社区人心的草根艺术，“人民的声音”，Spoken word，诗人之间，诗人和乐手之间相互唱和，还有竞赛鼓动，经常场面爆满，激动人心。我那一整年，背着一大包写作材料，往来于各个咖啡馆社区诗社，加入这样的美国民间的自由表演表达。当时我刚开始画油画半年多，转化脱出以前对于书法的包括中西两方面的“传统体验认识”深层问题框限，经过之前多年的西方文学哲学和基本人性道德方面探索，正在经历一场心灵的大解放和沟通，太多话要说，对象不论“中西”，太多感想郁积和思想认识的“结”要疏通宣泄清理，所谓情动于中而形于言，言之不足嗟叹之，嗟叹之不足故永歌之，永歌之不足，不知手之舞之，足之蹈之。所在城市音乐工业很发达，其音乐诗歌氛围刚好提供这个自由通转环境，一个星期“转战”几处，一两个星期写一首诗，写完之后背下来，刻在脑中，通过表演和舞蹈变成身躯的活的语言，推动自己的转化“进化”往前走，视情况有时还要配上音乐，诗从吟诵变成吟唱，到后来自己开始写歌作曲弄乐器，其实也只是回归艺术相通的本来面目。以下是我当时边吟咏边舞蹈自己所写的一首诗，Ask me not where I am from（不要问我从哪里来）
这张黑白照片是81或82年浙江日报上刊登的我小学时第一次获全国少儿书法比赛一等奖后受邀去其他学校表演书法时所摄
这是8年多前开始画油画时所作，以手的描摩来接通我内心之光与我眼所见外在世界之光，寻得我对透视的精神的理解，当时用的还是我那10年自学书法时的“签名”。从书法表演到油画和英文诗歌表演，这“传统”功夫的翻译解放转换，可谓“此身似历茫茫海，一颗骊珠乍得时”。
Ask Me Not Where I Am From
Ask me not where I come from
I will tell you I come from the past
And I have paid my dues to the past
I will say no more about what you think you know,
knowing I could add no more to the filled box
the box you made for yourself labelled the Chinese
Filled with what I call the past
I ask you to see me
I ask you to ask no more for my name and the next minute call me by the name of another Chinese
For you never saw me nor this other Chinese, you saw only a shadow among shadows, a copy among copies,
You saw only my back
You saw your own blind spot masked by my Chinese face
And I emerge from the shadows into the light,
I turned my back on the beaten track
I take the road untravelled
I go down the path of becoming, becoming the original Chinese
I cut my own path, I make my own words, I mould my own true face like a shining mask
The original Chinese is an artist creating herself
The original Chinse is a poet announcing herself
The original Chinese is a dancer of her unparalleled steps
The original Chinese is a warrior for no one but herself first
The original Chinese is a demon of creativity,
The original Chinese is the genius of nature
I will not fit in your box labeled Chinese
Oh I feel the smallness of your box, Oh I can’t breathe in this box
For my name is freedom
I cannot be bound
Or is it a box in my own mind? For how can your box bind me if I had not accepted the bondage in myself?
Well, let me smash it, let me burst it open
Let me explode it first in me and then in you, or perhaps between me and you, or between me and myself? Or perhaps between you and yourself? Or perhaps between me, just like you, and this world, this life? Or perhaps between me and this air around me and this ground under my feet?
Yes I will not be shackled by anyone or anything or any idea in me or outside me,
I feel my warm blood rises in me strong like the river of life
I am reborn in this life for fresh air and largeness of action
My coming is the spirit reunited with flesh
My arrival is the breakthrough from the element of water into the element of fire
My advent from the past to the future shakes up times and minds
As I make my way through, light rays of seven colors sparkle like music from the rubbing and friction of different elements and worlds and minds
I am as innocent and sweet, wild and free like the lion and gazelle running on the prairie, like the birds flying in the air, like the trees and grass and flowers growing in the sun and wind
Oh let nothing come between me and the earth and sky
For I am the retrograde, younger than when I was young
I am the true rebel
I am the spirit of freedom
I am the original Chinese
Oh what brand new sensation will my coming to the world bring to me?
Oh what freshness and cleanness will my coming bring to you, world?
Will you be the same with and without me, world?
Know me, know me anew, world
As I know you anew, world
I don’t believe the world is the same with and without me
I leap onto this solid ground from the airy tower of infinite height and the darkest of the underworld
I land here, I shake the earth
So feel me, feel my repercussion, feel my collision as from a moving planet, feel my heartbeat, feel my touch, feel my warm body, feel my kicks and fists, feel my words and sounds, feel my breath in this air you breathe
What will my truthful coming disclose to your eye, world?
What truthful face will you show me, world?
Let us forget where you and I come from, I don’t care where you come from and you don’t really care where I come from
Let us meet here and now
Let not where I come from nor where you come from come between us
For that is where you and I come from in separation in the past, not where we are now, the meeting ground
Let us make some space for now
Let us make some space for here
Let us make some space for our meeting ground
