China and to his estimate, based on conversations with Web site
operators, that on average twenty new poems appear daily on such
sites. Chen’s numbers refer to all poetry activity on the Internet in
China, the great bulk of which is in “new poetry” forms. Poetry lovers
and scholars seeking to “discover” poetry that meets their tastes or
interests are bound to be initially nonplussed by such profusion and at
a loss as to how to approach what at first glance can be described only
as an anarchic state of poetry.
A large portion of the poetry Chen addresses in his article, and that
which the poem above refers to is what I term “avant-garde”. My
preliminary research indicates there are over one hundred poetry Web
sites that may be so termed, and several times that number of blogs by
poets who contribute to these Web sites. Preliminary research into this
area has been begun by Michel Hockx under the self-explanatory title
“Virtual Chinese Literature: A Comparative Case Study of Online
Poetry Communities” (Hockx 2005) in which the layout and procedures
of one mainland Chinese poetry Web site are compared to current
Western (U.S.) practice. Since 2002, my interests have led to a focus on
avant-garde poetry activity on the Internet in China. What follows is a
brief overview, ultimately focusing on recent events that hopefully will
help readers make some sense of the seeming confusion.
The Internet as a space for poetry production became an integral
part of the avant-garde poetry scene in China during 2000. It was at
this time that Poem Life?NXand other influential poetry Web sites
were established and began to attract the participation of recognized
avant-garde poets, previously interested only in paper publication,
official or unofficial (in self-published journals with limited circula-
tion), as well as newly emergent poets aspiring to “recognition” and
avant-garde status. Earlier, access to such forums had been largely
restricted to technology-savvy, “amateur” poetry enthusiasts and
university students.
Chinese language poetry Web sites began to appear in North
America (The Olive TreeY榄树is a comprehensive literature site with
poetry as a major component), Taiwan, and Hongkong in 1995, 1997,
and 1998 respectively (Sang 2001). In China, this activity was
retarded by the later development of Internet infrastructure and
because individual access to computers was largely limited to places of
work and study. This situation began to change in the late 1990s as a
result of growth in personal disposable income among city dwellers
and a state-led emphasis on the development of high technology in
general and the Internet in particular.
202 Michael Day