between 1957 and 1962 offer a timely commentary on contemporary
events and a subtle attack on government policy.
Ya Xian belongs to an anomalous group of creative writers that
existed in post-1949 Taiwan: military officers or soldiers who also
wrote trend-setting modernist poetry (Winckler 1994: 40). Luo Fu,
Shang Qin, Zhang Mo (b. 1931), Xin Yu
(b. 1933), Chu Ge
戈(b. 1932), Guan Guan (b. 1930), as well as Ya, all members
of the Epoch Poetry Club 創, had military connections from
serving in the armed forces on the mainland or after arriving in Taiwan
(Xi 1998a). Some had come to Taiwan as part of the Nationalist troops
that accompanied Chiang Kai-shek in his retreat to island exile. These
poets largely ignored calls for patriotic anticommunist literature and
chose to experiment with modernist aesthetics to create new poetry
outside of the narrow bounds prescribed by the government and by
semiofficial literary institutions. Previous or current service in the
military, graduation from military-sponsored schools or programs, and
postings in military or civilian government offices or installations gave
these men the prestige, honor, and authority that allowed them to
experiment with a variety of styles, forms, and themes free from cen-
sorship. The heightened subjectivity and idiosyncratic tendencies
common to the Epoch group’s creative writing made their poems more
difficult for others to read and thus gave them what Ross Chambers
terms “room for maneuver,” which allowed them to conceal critiques
of government and society in their works. By publishing their poems in
unofficial journals such as Epoch Poetry 創, their work
appeared in literary venues outside the government- affiliated periodicals
that prevailed in the mid-1950s publishing scene.
Ya Xian^1 has enjoyed a long career as a poet, literary historian,
editor, and teacher. Born Wang Qinglin 慶in Nanyang, Henan,
Ya joined the GMD Army in August 1949 in Hunan and soon after
came with them to Taiwan. A graduate in film and dramatic arts from
the Political Cadre Academy in 1953, he rose to the rank of lieutenant
commander in the ROC Navy before his retirement in 1966. He had
early on adopted the penname of Ya Xian and joined fellow military
poets Zhang Mo and Luo Fu in founding the Epoch Poetry Club in
1954 and starting the poetry journal Epoch Poetry later that year. This
journal would provide a key venue for publishing experimental verse
and for introducing both modernist poets from the prewar period and
major Western poets and movements, most notably surrealism, to
readers in Taiwan from the late 1950s through the 1960s. Ya first
went abroad in 1966 and spent two years studying in the International
Writing Program at the University of Iowa. He later returned to the
48 Steven L. Riep