avant-garde poetry from china 11that beyond its institutional connotations it can also refer to aesthetic
matters. This ambiguity has been put to clever use in poetical debates
within the avant-garde, most of all during an extended polemic in the
years 1998-2000. More generally, it is operational in various stake-
holders’ claims to symbolic capital, in Pierre Bourdieu’s terms.^14 No
self-respecting avant-garde poet will accept being called official in the
aesthetic sense, meaning that their work reflects orthodox preferences
in thematics and so on. In addition to publishing through unofficial
channels, however, just about every such poet sets great store by ap-
pearing in publications that are official in the institutional sense. That
is: they are formally registered, and their colophon contains library
catalogue data, a fixed price and so on. One can, in other words, pub-
lish in institutionally official books and journals or hold membership
of official institutions such as the Writers’ Association, and yet enjoy
recognition as an aesthetically unofficial poet.
Yu Jian and Xi Chuan, two authors whose work features prom-
inently in this book, are cases in point. Since the 1990s both have
counted as leading poets in China and built up international renown.
While they are aesthetically of unofficial provenance and formative
stages of their careers unfolded through institutionally unofficial chan-
nels, both have published collections with major official presses. In
addition, Yu Jian has been employed by the Yunnan Province Fed-
eration of Literary and Art Circles (ѥफ᭛㡎⬠㘨ড়Ӯ) as editor of
the Yunnan Literature and Art Review (ѥफ᭛㡎䆘䆎) for the full length
of his parallel career as an unofficial poet. Xi Chuan, who teaches at
the Central Institute for Fine Arts in Beijing, was one of five poets who
received the eminently official, four-yearly Lu Xun Award for Litera-
ture (剕䖙᭛ᄺ༪) in 2002, and Yu Jian was among the laureates in
- Rather than letting these things influence any assessment of the
integrity of these or other poets vis-à-vis caricatures of an orthodoxy
that continues to ideologize literature, Yu Jian’s and Xi Chuan’s lit-
erary output raises the question whether this is perhaps a sign of the
unofficial scene changing the official scene.
As part of overall rapid social change, cultural life in the People’s
Republic displays increasing pluriformity. This pluriformity and the
said ambiguities clarify how, in spite of a chasm of aesthetic difference
that continues to separate official and unofficial poetry scenes, their
(^14) Bourdieu 1993: ch 1.