MCLC: Haizi poem (2,3)

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: sean macdonald <smacdon2005 at gmail.com>
Subject: Haizi poem (2)
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Thanks for these postings. Yes, I remember learning about Haizi around the
same time, the early 1990s. In hindsight, the aura around this poet was
very much a construction of the time. Not only were his words significant,
but the narrative of the period, and especially the biography of the poet
had a particular resonance.

Reading about figures from this time brings back memories of an earlier
period of history. And also the place of poetry and literature. I am
skeptical of the claim that digital technology has "democratized"
expression, but the ability to "publish," to present to large numbers of
readers, has certainly altered the concept of the "author" and certainly
the concept of language as poetry and literature.

I wonder about the place of the text. Is poetry still a viable medium (or
content?). Post-structuralism is a doormat in many cases. But the question
of the "individual," that abstract thing often referred to by name (for
convenience or ownership), was articulated in very specific ways in that
period. Was the poet just a mad blip in history past?

All the best,

Sean 

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From: Martin Winter <dujuan99 at gmail.com>
Subject: Haizi poem (3)

I was in a hurry to post this poem on March 26. The link in my post was
inserted by Kirk. The Hai Zi feature in People's Daily begins with another
very enthusiastic attempt at canonization. Rui Kunze's study Struggle and
Symbiosis: The Canonization of the Poet Haizi and Cultural Discourses in
Contemporary China was reviewed on MCLC
<http://mclc.osu.edu/rc/pubs/reviews/klein.htm> by Lucas Klein not long
ago. I haven't read the book yet, but I am familiar with Maghiel van
Crevel's Thanatography and the Poetic Voice: Haizi, in van Crevel, Chinese
Poetry in Times of Mind, Mayhem and Money. Leiden: Brill, 2008, 91-136.

I like the choice of poems in this People's Daily feature. One poem (Wo
suo neng kanjian de funü 我所能看见的妇女) appears in a rare earlier version
that
differs from widely available later editions.

The longer poem quoted last [Zuguo (huo yi meng wei ma) 祖国(或以梦为马)]
contains the lines "我甘愿一切从头开始/ 和所有以梦为马的诗人一样/ 我也愿将牢
底坐穿", which could be
rendered as　’I am ready to start again with everything from the beginning/
like every poet pursuing his dream/ I am ready to sit through the bottom
of jail' (lines 15-17). As far as I am aware, Hai Zi did not engage in
political activism. But he started university in 1979, when he was only
15, at a time often called "Beijing Spring".

Hai Zi's most famous poem Mian chao dahai, chunnuan huakai 面 朝大海春暖花开
(Face
the sea, warm spring in bloom) has never been called Beijing Spring
before, as far as I know. I just thought of it now, in the context of
March 2014. The poem is from March 1989, Hai Zi's last month. There was an
interesting essay about in the magazine Wanxiang 万象 about 10 years ago. I
don't have the issue at hand right now. Maybe it came out in 2004, to mark
15 years after 1989.

Martin