424 chapter twelve
way in which pure ambition has made the famous Kunming poet de-
generate into his present state.
Four weeks later, on 28 August, the Science Times gave four Popular
voices an opportunity to respond: Yi Sha, Yu Jian, Xu Jiang and Shen
Haobo. The full-page feature’s headline runs
Beijing Poets Sheathe Their Swords
Local Bards Now Stretch Their BowsIf we grant po-ets two syllables, this translation retains the original line
length of seven syllables, common in classical Chinese poetry (䆫):
࣫Ҁ䆫Ҏܹࠥ䵬
ⳕ偮ᅶজᓴᓧThe parallel contrast of Beijing with the provinces (rendered as local)
is followed by one of Northern poets 䆫Ҏ and Southern bards 偮
ᅶ. In this particular context the latter term can also mean something
like ‘rabble-rousers.’ It brings to mind Qu Yuan’s «On Encountering
Trouble» (行偮) in Songs of the South and an opposition of this ancient
“Southern” poetic tradition and a “Northern” tradition represented
by the Book of Songs, even though this dichotomy is complex and by no
means absolute.^14 Thus, the headline’s choice of words alludes to Chi-
nese literary history to reflect the North-South and central-regional
dichotomies put forward by Popular poets and critics.
As for the individual contributions to the Science Times, Yi Sha’s “So
Who Is It Has Gone Mad?” (おコ䇕⮃њ?, #60) is an example of
Yi’s rhetorical talent for the genres of satire and pamphlet. He attacks
Xi Chuan (#33) for having likened Popular activism to an “under-
world” of poetry. The opening paragraphs of Yu Jian’s “Who Is Pro-
ducing Discursive Power?” (䇕ࠊ䗴䆱䇁ᴗ?, #61) are hilarious.
Yu wonders how poets can live in a place like Beijing, which he turns
into a locus of estrangement from indigenous culture, and suggests
that the heated reactions to his writings are probably explained by
dog-day temperatures in the capital. In “Dare Say ‘No’ to the Poetry
Scene” (ᬶᇍ䆫യ䇈 “ϡ”, #59) Xu Jiang expresses disappointment in
Wang, Tang and other proponents of the Intellectual cause, and offers
an account of the Panfeng conference of the type labeled tendentious
and deceptive by Intellectuals like Sun Wenbo. In “Let the Polemic
(^14) Hawkes 1985: 15-28, Hartman 1986: 59-63.