LEO LEE
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long poems are composed of many sections of short verses. In my
view this penchant for brevity is an intentional desire to "reflect" the
poet's fragmented psyche and the chaos of life - which fits the mood
of the younger generation. In addition, the younger poets are much
more eager to experiment with poetic imagery.
The veteran poet Ai Qing has become one of the most severe
critics of the
Today
poetry, complaining that it is too difficult to un–
derstand, even for intellectual readers like himself-not to mention
the "masses." The term "obscure poetry"
(menglong shi)
has thus
become the detractors' label for the poetry practiced by the
Today
poets and others who write like them, such as the young poet Gu
Cheng.
Certainly more is at stake than the mere issue of incomprehen–
sibility. These "obscure" poems sprout on native soil, the fruits of a
purposeful effort to depoliticize literature and to deflate the ideo–
logical weight of realism. The objective of the young poets is the same
as that of the novelists and playwrights of humanism mentioned
above - to use their writing for the exploration of the human self.
Gu Cheng characterizes the rise of this new poetry in the following
manner:
I think that what makes this new poetry so new is because there
appears in it a 'self - a self with the special features of modern
youth . ..
The new 'self is born precisely on these ruins. He has broken
the shell which forces him to be alienated, and he flexes his body
in the wind which is devoid of the fragrance of flowers. He be–
lieves in the scars of his wounds, believes in his brain and nerves,
believes in walking as a master of himself.
One could in fact trace a genealogy of self-discovery in the early
works of these young poets: from gingerly efforts at self-portrait ("I
have these two eyes/One side is darkness/On the other side light";
Mang Ke: "Self-Portrait"), to a humanistic declaration ("I am no
hero/In an age without heroes/I just want to be a man"; Bei Dao:
"Declaration"), to simple evocations of idealism and -disillusionment
("Love and ideals/And liThe three of us are friends"; Liang
Xiaobin: "Love and Ideals"; "Let me tell you, world/I-do-not–
believe!"; Bei Dao: "The Answer") . By reworking these simple and
transparent lines, sometimes a gifted poet like Bei Dao is able to con-
