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Copyright New Zealand Electronic Poetry Centre Mar 2012

Abstract

[...]they are just different types of death: death from remembering is the same as death from forgetting. Not only is the foreignness of the land in which the exile finds himself clearly illuminated, but so is the more fearful realisation that the place that once was home is now equally foreign and inaccessible. Since exile is another form of death, whether his poetry is about the massacre or about exile, it will contain corpses. [...]this poetry is irrelevant and incomprehensible in the land of exile and banned in the land that was once home. [...]it drifts away. [...]pre exile, a poet of China, emphasizing the blood relationship between his early work and his native land; secondly a poet writing in Chinese, exploring the specific limitations and possibilities of Chineseness among languages; more recently he defines himself as a poet writing in "Yanglish," a designation which recognises that his poems are foreign even to Chinese speakers.

Details

Title
Ghosts in the City: The Auckland Exile of Yang Lian and Gu Cheng
Author
Chung, Hilary
Publication year
2012
Publication date
Mar 2012
Publisher
New Zealand Electronic Poetry Centre
e-ISSN
11772182
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
1312436048
Copyright
Copyright New Zealand Electronic Poetry Centre Mar 2012