desecrations? 397Han Dong and Yu Jian sit at the Earthly end of the spectrum and ac-
tively work against the Elevated. Yet, they are anything but “pure” in
this respect, as evidenced by their own (re)construction of poetry and
poethood as sacred things.
Their many comments on the actualities of the Chinese poetry scene
suggest that Han’s and especially Yu’s metatextual output are more
strategically motivated than Xi Chuan’s, meaning that they more de-
monstrably aspire to influence the development of the avant-garde.
We will return to the issue of strategic behavior in the next chapter,
which considers the Popular-Intellectual Polemic.