Poetry in exile
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Arizona Daily Wildcat
Bei Dao, author of Landscape Over Zero
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When you read a line of Bei Dao's poetry, you cannot help but sense the undertones of a larger collective voice. Yet, from an interview in The Journal of the International Institute, the poet claims that when he writes he is "[thinking] of a small audience of friends ... I am writing for that small group ... I am not thinking of particular people, but of potential readers ... I don't like my poetry to be seen ... as a collective voice."
Where It's At
Chinese poet-in-exile Bei Dao reads tonight at 8 in the Modern Languages Auditorium. Admission is free.
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Dao's latest work is a collection of poetry entitled Landscape Over Zero. As part of the ongoing Poetry Center's reading series, he will read tonight at 8 in the Modern Languages Auditorium.
The words of this Chinese poet-in-exile are considered a significant factor in many students' decisions to engage in revolutionary activities during the 1989 democracy movement in China, which culminated in the Tiananmen Square protests. In 1989 Bei Dao was accused of helping incite events in Tiananmen Square and forced into exile. Since then he has lived in seven countries, including Sweden, Denmark, Germany, France and the United States. He is thought of as China's best contemporary poet, and as a possible future Nobel Laureate in literature.
The extraordinary force in Dao's poetry is it functions under two guises, a subjective impression of the individual and the collective voice of a movement. The latter in his writing is a consequence of the individuality of his work. Dao's poetry is drawn from his experiences during Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and through his involvement as part of the democratic efforts of the cultural and political underground. As a young member of Zedong's Red Guard, Bei Dao experienced first-hand the exhilaration and disillusionment of thousands of Chinese youth.
In the above mentioned interview, Dao recalls "... the big change in my political views came in 1969 when I was sent to the countryside. It was a big fall ... I discovered the poverty and backwards conditions of the countryside and how different it was from the propaganda we had been given about it." It was then Dao lost enthusiasm for Zedong's revolution and he "began to study, to read and to write."
Bei Dao's words penetrate consciousness with subtle, lyrical beauty. The effect is daunting. In a poem entitled "A New Century", Dao writes:
when archaeologists discover
a photo-negative ghost of the era
a child grabs it, saying no
it's history won't let us fly
it's birds won't let us walk
it's legs won't let us dream
it's our giving birth to ourselves
it's birth
"On the one hand poetry is useless," Dao says, "it can't change the world materially. On the other hand," he continues, "it is a basic part of human existence. It came into the world when humans did. It's what makes human beings human."
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