avant-garde poetry from china 23the experimental duo fm3 and video artist Wu Quan. Growing Inter-
net use and multimedial poetry performance illustrate how the avant-
garde’s development is part of larger cultural trends, regardless of its
relative (in)ability to ride the technology tide.^30
- Text: From Elevated to Earthly and from What to How
Before we take a first glance at some of the avant-garde poetry re-
viewed in more detail later in this book, let’s recall the range of claims
currently laid in China to modern poetry at large, through a contras-
tive comparison similar to those made in essays by Gregory Lee and
Ronald Janssen. Consider these two red flags:^31
We
The youngest citizens of the Republic
Know how in the long river of history
The venerable older generations
Weathered battle after battle of blood and fire
The slowly rising Red Flag with its five stars
Once again makes us shed hot tears
Ah, salute!
The Red Flag with its five stars
As before the eyes of each of us
Images from the long night
Flash up in multitudesand:
«Red Flag Limo in Wind and Rain»
behind the provincial government building
behind the trees and the lawn
in a small open space
sits a red flag limo long discarded as useless
that’s weathered untold years of wind and rain
rusty to the point of being unrecognizable
you get all cynical again
but it’s really not worth it(^30) On Yan Jun, see chapter Thirteen.
(^31) Lee (Gregory) 1996: 50-51, Janssen 2002: 259ff.