views of Gu Cheng runs as follows: although always knowing how to
sing “songs of innocence,” he had never learned how to sing “songs of
experience.” In this light, the term “fairytale poet” hints a faux
naiveté, if not an enfant terrible, and is ultimately a curse rather than
a blessing.
But this perception, although sounding valid, can be simplistic. To
say the least, Gu Cheng’s early poetry is far from a literal, self-evident
“fairytale” of “innocence,” and the cultivated image of a “child-poet”
may be nothing but an inflected expression of a very Chinese experi-
ence at a particular historical juncture.^1 Also, between his early and late
poetry there appear significant changes and evolutions in terms of both
theme and style. Lastly, and most importantly, moral condemnation
or aesthetic derogation aside, do not Gu Cheng’s fate and poetry—
particularly his late poetry—mirror the common predicament that had
confronted his contemporaries too, despite their ostensible personal or
aesthetic differences? This last question is particularly pertinent if we
move our sights to a larger historical fact. That is, since the late 1980s,
and particularly since 1989, many of the “misty” poets, Gu Cheng
himself included, had either voluntarily chosen or been impelled to live
outside the once familiar “China,” an exilic life in an unfamiliar “new
world” of the West. This encounter with the “new world” hence played
a decisive role in terms of redefining “innocence” and “experience” in
a post-1989, and one might even say posthistorical, context.
Yang Lian 杨 (b. 1955), for example, a fellow “misty” poet who
left China at about the same time as Gu Cheng, later acknowledged
the extent of the shock and self-doubt he had experienced upon hear-
ing of Gu Cheng’s death:
If you remember, 1993 was the year that Gu Cheng committed suicide,
and not long before that I had just written Darknesses (Heianmen) in
New York. The West was a strange land, offering me no linguistic
environment, and how could I really go on? How long would I be able
to go on? The future was completely in the dark; it really was like
hitting rock bottom. (Yang 2003: 247)Yet it seems that only by going through such a “death experience” can
one start a new life both artistically and personally:
I am witnessing myself setting out for the open sea, which actually
contains all the splits that I have experienced, in reality and in language.
These splits in a sense are necessary. If Chinese poets did not experience
these kinds of splits, this rebirth after death, we would not have sufficient
linguistic energy to express the depth of our existence. (Yang 2003: 248)124 Yibing Huang