314 chapter nine
Manifestations and a ManifestoLower Body poets without university degrees were advertised by their
companions as not “polluted by knowledge.”^7 A fair number of them,
however, had willingly absorbed such pollution in earlier years. Yin
Lichuan studied French at Peking University, the flagship of Aca-
deme in China, and film at the École Supérieure Libre d’Études Ci-
nématographiques in Paris. Four others—including Shen Haobo, the
group’s driving force—studied Chinese at the highly reputed Beijing
Normal University. This didn’t keep them from scoffing at formal edu-
cation as a bastion of highbrow culture. As such, in its Earthly anti-
intellectualism Lower Body poetry follows on seamlessly from many
Popular contributions to the Polemic. Yi Sha and Xu Jiang, two Popu-
lar polemicists who have offended just about everyone who is anyone
in Chinese poetry since the early 1990s, and who are held in high
esteem by the Lower Body poets, are also BNU graduates. By way of
an example of the above-mentioned generation gap, the BNU con-
nection would have contributed to Lan Dizhi’s angry outburst against
the Polemic at a conference entitled Chinese Literature from a Cul-
tural Viewpoint (᭛࣪㾚䞢ЁⱘЁ᭛ᄺ), at Tsinghua University in
August 2001. It is easy to see how Lan, one-time professor of Chinese
at BNU, might have felt as if he had nurtured a nest of vipers in his
bosom.^8
In Chinese universities, many students and professors write poet-
ry, especially though not exclusively those in the humanities. It is not
uncommon for professors or high-level administrators to encourage
salon-like meetings where students “learn to write poetry.” The phrase
implies a different vision than that exuded by most avant-garde poetics
and exhibits the continuing influence of traditional Chinese views of
poetry as a skill that can be acquired rather than something requiring
radical creativity and original innovation, if not deviation from the
norm. Universities such as PKU and BNU produce journals and an-
thologies of students’ poetry, recitals and awards. Such student poetry
rarely rises above well-behaved, conservative burbling, in lyrical evoca-
tions of the changing of the seasons, unrequited love and weltschmerz.
The original voices of the few who stand out and rise to nationwide
(^7) See Shen Haobo’s manifesto, below.
(^8) Cf Zhu Dake 2006: 278-279.