130 chapter three
speaker doesn’t grant him, or the poem, any individuality. On that
note, the line I plunge into this fire (☿דܹ៥ᡩ, in a passage left untrans-
lated here), recalls establishment poet Guo Xiaochuan’s «Plunge into
the Fiery Struggle» (ᡩܹ☿⛁ⱘ᭫ѝ, 1955)—just like Haizi’s «In
the Fall, Remember the Pain of Spring And Remember Lei Feng»
(辛᮹ᛇ䍋ⱘ⮯㢺 гᛇ䍋䳋䫟, 1987) echoes the «Song of Lei
Feng» (䳋䫟П℠, 1963) by that other figurehead of Political Lyricism,
He Jingzhi.^55
These things call attention to an interface of avant-garde texts—
including famous works of early Obscure Poetry as well as Haizi’s
work—with Maoist orthodoxy in their shared predilection for solemn,
deeply ideological grand narratives, a connection that Yeh has char-
acterized as one of subtle literary complicity.^56 Haizi’s intertextuality
with Guo is especially interesting because while his style in «Ancestral
Land» is similar to that of Guo’s collectivist Political Lyricism of the
1950s, he employs it to preach a kind of social heterodoxy in which the
I is an ill-adjusted figure by mainstream standards. And yet, in its loud-
ness and its appeal to ethno-cultural identity—references to China as
the birthplace of a new poetry “of greatness” (ӳ) occur throughout
Haizi’s writings—this poem seeks a kind of social endorsement, a mea-
sure of approval within the avant-garde.
Judging from its present status, it has succeeded. Witness, for in-
stance, the fact that its subtitle (With a Dream for a Horse) is the name
of a multiple-author anthology edited by Chen Chao, part of a 1993
six-volume set with obvious canonizing ambitions, edited by Xie Mian
and Tang Xiaodu, called A Review of Trends in Contemporary Poetry (ᔧҷ
䆫℠╂⌕ಲ乒).^57 In addition to its potential for a romantic reading,
supported by Haizi’s biography—in phrases like short-lived lover of things
material, poetry’s corpse and I must fail—this is explained by the manifesto-
like characteristics of the first stanza. The line like all those poets with a
dream for a horse recurs in penultimate position in the first eight of its
nine stanzas. Its semantics fit the said romantic poetics perfectly. In
addition, the original is rhythmically beautiful and the line’s central
word group, with a dream [mèng] for a horse [m©] (ҹṺЎ偀), contains a
powerful alliteration in two of four equally stressed syllables. Last but
(^55) Guo 1985: 45-51, Haizi 1997: 364, He Jingzhi 1979: 366-426.
(^56) Yeh 1996a: part 2.
(^57) Chen Chao 1993, Xie Mian & Tang 1993.