32 chapter one
high-cultural niche area populated and held together by highly edu-
cated and well-connected practitioners and supporters. The latter in-
clude editors and specialist and amateur readers, meaning professional
critics and scholars as well as dedicated fans: university students and
generations of graduates, and generally those whose lifestyle means
keeping abreast of high-cultural development. Also, one effect of the
commercialization of culture in China has been the emergence of fi-
nancial sponsorship—by companies and individuals, named and un-
named—for poets, publications and events, and indeed for academic
institutions for the study of poetry. Beijing-based real estate tycoon
Huang Nubo of the Zhongkun Investment Group, also known as poet
Luo Ying, is one of several patrons of poetry who come from corporate
life.^39
Thus, while the poetry crowd might barely constitute even a single-
digit percentage of the population of a few big cities, not to mention
parts of the country that cannot afford to be poetically inclined, this
still means a sizable reference group in absolute numbers. What’s
more, they are influential in terms of symbolic capital. Yet, since the
mid- and late 1990s, even specialist readers have despaired at what
they perceive as a crisis (ॅᴎ) in poetry, often presented as the result
of its marginalization (䖍㓬࣪). A famous instance is Peking University
professor Xie Mian’s concern, voiced in 1997 at a large-scale interna-
tional conference on modern Chinese poetry held in Wuyishan, that
“certain types of poetry are moving away from us” (᳝ѯ䆫℠ג行
៥Ӏ䖰এ). This was all the more telling because in 1980 Xie had cou-
rageously intervened in the controversy surrounding Obscure Poetry,
coming to the defense of a budding avant-garde that had just emerged
from its underground origins into overground culture.^40 During the
discussion at the Wuyishan conference, Xie’s colleague Hong Zicheng
opined that “we” might just be “moving away from certain types of
poetry” instead. The exchange between these two renowned scholars
reflects the shifting relationship between primary texts and commen-
tary. This has become thoroughly unpredictable in comparison to the
Maoist years, when scholarship and criticism were allowed little ambi-
guity, and even in comparison to the 1980s, although this decade saw
the beginning of real debate rather than foregone conclusions.
(^39) Cf Crespi 2007b, Inwood 2008: 62-65, 133, 228-255.
(^40) Xie Mian 1980.