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New Generation: Poems from China Today. Wang Ping, ed. John Yau, intro. Brooklyn, N.Y. Hanging Loose. 1999. 235 pages, ill. $25 ($16 paper). ISBN 1-882413-55-5 (54-7 paper).
Post-Maoist literature in China began with the group of young poets who first appeared at the end of the i97os and became known as the Misty or Obscure Poets (menglong shi). Despite official disapproval and repression, the Misty Poets were enormously admired and popular among the young eager for a new consciousness and self-expression, and they inspired a remarkable outburst of poetic activity during the i98os. The present volume is the first book-length selection of translations representing the slightly younger poets who developed out of and in opposition to the Misty Poets.
Given the tumultuous and rapid changes in Chinese society throughout the past half century of the People's Republic, which have if anything...