The originalLow Poetryforum was the no longer extant Low Poetry
Movement Forum8?|
, opened on March 29, 2004, by the
poets Long Jun , Zhang Jiayan 嘉, and Hua Qiang R. The
Low Poetry Network8?was opened in November 2005 and is a
clearinghouse for the forums and Web sites linked to the movement.
Among these thirty-plus poetry sites and forums are the Trash
Movement Forum 垃>|
, the Poetry Vagabonds Forum
?
, and the Them Literature NetD文l, all of which
preceded the establishment of the Low Poetry Forum(2003, 2001, and
2002, respectively).
The majority of the poets involved in this “movement” belong to
the self-styled generations of poets born during the 1970s (70)
and 1980s (80) and identify closely with the “popular” or “among-
the-people”poetry writing tendency that emerged very publicly
during the 1998–1999 polemic between adherents of this tendency
and those of the “intellectual” 分 poetry tendency (Van
Crevel 2007).
Yet, in a recent essay, Zhang Jiayan addresses all these issues and
acknowledges the limitations, if not the death, of Low poetry as a
“movement” (Zhang 2005). The genesis of the movement is linked to
the appearance in 2001 of the Web site Poetry Vagabonds, its
webzines and unofficial paper journals, and the “Lower Body” style of
poetry championed by its poets (such as Shen Haobo, Yin
Lichuan, and Wu Ang昂). Zhang sees this as a successful
smashing of the taboo on the writing of sex and sexual activity. Two
years later, the Trash Movement appeared, also with webzines and
paper journals, but now the focus was on smashing the taboos on
writing about the basest bodily functions. As with Lower Body poetry,
there was an aspect of reaction against the lofty, obscure subject
matter of the “intellectual” poets who are seen as importing Western
standards of metaphysical poetry alien to modern Chinese culture and
language. In this sense, the Low Poetry Movement is seen as an effort
to purify Chinese poetical language, bringing it closer to the lives and
language of the people of China. Moreover, in his essay, Zhang cham-
pioned the smashing of a final taboo, politics—thus seeking the
depoliticization of language—and established a forum dedicated to
this purpose (China Low Poetry Tide ¡8?¢ 2005). Zhang
acknowledges that no “movement” similar to that which accompanied
Lower Body or Trash poetry is possible at this time and places the bur-
den of responsibility on the “Individual Avant-Garde”@£先¥. This
translates into poetry that smashes through political taboos being posted
by individual poets on poetry forums, the managers of which are willing
206 Michael Day