exile 177Remorse comes down like heavy snow
when a stone reveals the end
I cry here and now for what’s left of my life
Give me another name
I mask myself in misfortune
to block my mother tongue’s sunIn this chapter, when translating from the Chinese, I use mother tongue
rather than native language or native tongue, because the Chinese ↡䇁
literally means ‘mother language,’ and the signified of these various
terms—one’s “own” language—is central to the exile experience.
In exile and my mother tongue, «Poison» has straightforward exile
markers. Less explicitly, a sense of nostalgia runs through the poem,
from the faded banners to yesterday’s wind—as the force propelling
the wings and the music that are visible and audible through the exile’s
window—to remorse and the notion of what’s left of my life. The asking
for another name, the masking or disguising (Ӿ㺙) of the self and the
obstruction of the mother tongue bring to mind Yang Lian’s words:
Write yourself up as another, and you will live.
It has often been noted that the physical exile of poets from the PRC
who lived abroad at one time or another was preceded by a “spiritual”
or “inner” or “internal” exile that was required for and reinforced by
poethood inside China to begin with.^72 Here, rather than what they
actually wrote, the notion of poethood signifies what it meant to be-
long to the avant-garde in terms of social status. A few authors enjoyed
exceptional popularity soon after the Cultural Revolution, for works
that were readily interpretable as the expression of widespread socio-
political grievances. Beyond that historical moment, however, outside
a small if well-positioned audience, avant-garde poets have consistent-
ly been marginal and controversial figures—when measured against
official cultural policy and popular taste, that is.
Inner exile, as an exilic retreat into the mind, is not specifically Chi-
nese or exclusive to the modern era. Cicero, for instance, is one of
those who have remarked that exile can occur without one’s being
driven from a home. As regards inner exile in response to political
(^72) For terminological clarity, physical exile inside the nation’s borders might be
called domestic exile instead of inner or internal exile. The latter usage occurs in
Daruvala 1993: 35, Zhang Zhen 1999a: 312 and Liu Tao Tao 2001: 342ff.