New Perspectives on Contemporary Chinese Poetry

his preface to the Chinese edition, these poems are meant to be read as

“the ever revolving mirrors of a disco ball, reflecting human nature in

all its facets” (Yan 1999: 5). Yan further describes the approach as

providing direct access to the here and now according to the

“advertisement-like increments of time”DEF的GH划分(op cit)

that comprise life at the end of the last century, and the beginning of a

new millennium. A striking testimony to this orientation emerges in a

recent manuscript^14 in which we find the following heading to the

“poetry gum” section:

Production Location: China. K地: LM。

If they’re tasty, gnaw on them 有味>P<Q,

a bit longer, R味S吐掉

And if not, just spit them out VK者: *

Producer: Yan Li

The commodity orientation can be discovered in many of the “poetry

gum” poems, for instance,

When money raises its XYZ在V\面]

Wall in the face of life ^_`的a墙G

You have to pocket a few bricks cd其L的

In order to dig through. f块砖i

j()

(Translation by Denis Mair)

There are also overtones of classical poetry here. What these poems

have more in common, however, is the tradition of Japanese Koans.

Yan Li’s poetic epigrams are almost begrudging philosophical

snapshots, insights that, holding to his description of the disco ball,

reflect light rather than illuminate. They are epiphanies that nonethe-

less withdraw insight at the very moment they seem to impart it. We

are, for instance, given to wonder what Zen understanding resides in:

Every time I look back 我的lmnop

I hurt my neck qrs我的領u

Because both my home and I vw我x我的y

Ran away from home _zy's

Yan’s “poetry gum” poems lend themselves very well to a logic of

infiltration and dissidence, revealing machinations of a dehumanizing

system and raising, in the process, the potential for a voice of protest:

Tomorrow {天

I’ll visit a museum 我要在}物館

154 Paul Manfredi

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