Monologue of a Stormy Soul

I wantthecold-blooded QueenofSnowtohear Themonologue ofa stormy soul. . . - Duo Duo, "YJhen theHearseofSpringCrosses theSulfur-Mining LandofExile"(1983) in 1951,Duo Duo started writing in 1972butdid notpublishhispoetry in official venuesuntil1985.In March 1988hepublished hisfirst collection ofpoems, Salute.Although it contains onlythirty-eight poemsineighty-two pages,itisnoteworthy that hewas placedsecondinthelonglineofpoets published in theseries, after ShiZhi (b. 1949) andbefore theslightly olderandbetter-known MangKe(b.1950). OnDecember 23ofthesame year, Duo Duo received thefirst TodayPoetry Prize,and a largercollection in mimeograph waspublished under thetitle Milestones: Selected PoemsofDuo Duo, 1972-1988.In 1989he became thefirst eyewitness totheTiananmen Massacre onJune 4 tovisit theWest.Arriving inLondon fora readingthathad been scheduledlong before theincident, hefound himself atthecenterofa mediafrenzy. Thusbegana fifteen-year exilethat hecouldnothaveforeseen orchosen. Anexpanded collection ofDuo Duo'spoetrywas translated intoEnglishand published shortly after hisarrival inLondon. Intheensuingdecade ,atleasttwomoreindividual collectionsinEnglish appeared.In 1999he received thefirst AnneKao Poetry Prize;thefollowing yearhissecondcollection inChinese, Rivers in Amsterdam, was published. In 2004Duo Duo returned toChinatoassumethepostofchaired professor atHainanUniversity. Thesameyear, he received another poetry prize,awardedby theChinese-Language Media.Todate,thelargestcollection ofhisworkinChineseis Selected Poems ofDuoDuopublished in2005. Despite theprizes, themediahype, andthe fact that hewas thefirst contemporary Chinese poettobethesubject ofa book-length study ina Western language,1 Duo Duo was- andis- not widelyknown toChinesereaders. Throughout hiscareer, Duo Duo hasbeena poetoutside the mainstream. Thisis a matter ofchoicerather thannecessity. Unlikealmostall ofhis peers whohavebeenactive onthepoetry scenesince thelate1970s, Duo Duo does notgroupwith otherpoets,launchand editpoetry journals, orengageinliterary criticism anddebates. His relative "invisibility" and "silence"does not, however, stophisworkfrom exerting a significantinfluence onyounger generations ofpoets. In fact, hisfollowing has grownsteadily since thelate1990s. Duo Duo remains a poet'spoet. In myview,thesituation is intrinsically relatedto thepoeticsthatDuo Duo espouses andhischaracteristic style. Thisessayelucidates whatdistinguishes Duo Duo from hiscontemporaries byfocusing on theperiodof1972-88. March-April 2011 151 ■¡WH» ^^^^^M Contextualizing hisworkin thetwowavesof post-Mao poetry - Misty poetry andpost-Misty poetry - demonstrates that Duo Duo was paradoxically positioned in theliterary field. Fame came to himbelatedly, whilehis workwas aheadofhistime. A solitary writer bentonthe craft ofpoetry, hewas marginalized inthefirst wave;whileinsomewaysa predecessor ofthe secondwave,he was- and stillis- notrecognizedas such. Duo Duo and theMisties Duo was nota Mistypoet.The first anthology ofMistypoetry, published in 1985, doesnotinclude Duo Duo.Thesameyear, theMayFourth Literary Society atPeking University compiled a collection ofcomments and interviews of"youngpoets/'including all the majorMistiesand quitea fewyounger poets. Duo Duo was notamongthem.However,in recent years,as his workgainedrecognition and hisimpact becamemoreapparent, critics andhistorians wereeagertoestablish a genealogybyidentifying himwith certain movements and schools.Severalrecentanthologies and literary histories now place Duo Duo among theMisties.2 Paradoxically, the rationale for dubbing Duo Duo a Misty might beprovided bythepoethimself . In1988hepublished anessayentitled "The Buried Chinese Poets/7 inwhich hereminisced on underground poetry intheearly andmid-1970s, before Today burst onthescene.3 Exiled toa fishingvillage eighty-some milesfrom Beijing, Duo Duo and other youths who sharedan interest in literature started writing poetry in thespirit offriendly competition. Perhaps becauseoneof theyouths wasMangKe,later thecofounder of Today, Duo Duo cametobe associated with that underground journal, whichbecamethecradle ofMisty poetry. In recent yearstheearlycommunity ofpoetshasreceived extensive attention. Reminiscences, interviews, scholarly essays, and anthologies havebeenpublished; a newschool ofpoetry hasbeennamed after thefishing village Baiyangdian. As a forerunner ofMistypoetry, theso-called Baiyangdian Schooliscanonized in literary history. Whenwe recallsomeofthemostfamous lines ofMisty poetry, wecannot help butbestruck bythe prevalence ofindignation against theinjustices ofthe Cultural Revolution (1966-76) andthe desiretoreturn tohumanism. Inthepersona of Yu Luoke(1942-70), whowas executed for critiquing theorthodoxy, BeiDao (b.1949)wrote: "I amnota hero/ In an agewithout heroes/ I justwanttobe a man."4 Jiang He (b. 1950) paid tribute toanother martyr, ZhangZhixin (1930-75),in "Unfinished Story," describing heras crucified and predicting theriseofthe banner from herlapel.ShuTing(b.1952)sang ofromantic love,a tabooduring theCultural Revolution, in "To an Oak Tree,"whichcompares man and woman to two independent treeswhoserootsare intertwined, and "SelfPortrait ," in whichshe is a "willful elf"and "petitconspirator" - imagesthatwould have been unthinkable in an earlierera. Dubbed a "fairytale poet,"Gu Cheng(1956-93)saw Hans ChristianAndersen(1805-75) as his teacherand identified withthe mutechild looking fora voiceina dropofwaterinFedericoGarc íaLorca's (1898-1936)"The Little MuteBoy." Misty poetry bespeaks a questofindividualismina collectivist society, a questofmeaning inan age ofdarkness. Itis bestsummed up in Gu Cheng'spoemofonlytwolines,virtually a manifesto for"A Generation" - thoseyoung men and womenwho experienced the CulturalRevolution at a formative stagein their lives:"Darknight gaveme darkeyes,/ ButI usedthem tolookfor light."5 Inthesamevein, LiangXiaobin's

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