334 chapter nine
Poetry of 2001 (2001ᑈЁ᳔Շ䆫℠, 2002) is an inspirational essay
that portrays the Lower Body as a sign of innovation and the core of
a literary generation that had just been identified in Chinese-domestic
criticism at the time: Post-70, meaning that the authors in question
were born after 1970. Zhang reminds the reader that avant-garde
shifts away from the Elevated and toward the Earthly, which started
in the mid-1980s, have never yet managed to enter the vision of the
“common” people and that all avant-garde writing remains part of
elite culture.
In recent years, the Lower Body has secured a place in literary
history. By way of an example, Luo Zhenya’s 2005 survey history
On the Avant-Garde after Obscure Poetry dedicates a full chapter to
Post-70 poetry, with the Lower Body as the top-of-the-bill act (乚㸨)
mentioned in the chapter’s title. Luo presents a balanced account that
recognizes the Lower Body’s significance as the main representative of
Post-Colloquial Writing, the other constituent of Post-70 poetry being
what he calls the Academicized Writing (⊯ᄺ䰶࣪ݭ) of authors
including Hu Xudong, Jiang Hao, Jiang Tao, Wang Ai and Zhou
Zan. Within the Post-70 framework, these two strands can be seen as
affiliated with the Earthly and the Elevated, respectively. Luo rightly
notes that one of the Lower Body’s distinguishing features—and of
Post-70 poetry at large—is that it has produced many “happy texts”
(ᖿФⱘ᭛ᴀ) and displays little suffering (⮯㢺) of the kind one may
encounter in other poetry. He concludes that publicity-wise, Post-70
poetry, with the Lower Body as its trailblazer, has enough of a presence
to pose a real challenge to previous literary generations such as the
Third Generation and Poetry of the Nineties, but that its promise
needs yet to materialize. Another instance of recognition of the Lower
Body as part of contemporary culture—and, within that culture, of
a lineage of bad behavior, to which we turn below—is found in Zhu
Dake’s The Hooligan Banquet: Contemporary China’s Hooligan Narrative
(⌕⇧ⲯᆈ: ᔧҷЁⱘ⌕⇧ভџ, 2006). Zhu comments approvingly
on Yin Lichuan’s poetry. He writes of Shen Haobo’s work in disparaging
terms, but does note the force of Shen’s literary activism.^34
Of the damning reactions sampled above Xi Yunshu stands out
in that he cites his own astonishment in the face of recent develop-
(^34) Yi 2001a, Xu Jiang 2001, Xie Youshun 2001, Chen Zhongyi 2002a and
2002b, Zhang Qinghua 2002, Luo Zhenya 2005: ch 4, Zhu Dake 2006: 283-287.