Misty Poets

The Misty Poets are a group of Chinese poets who reacted against the restrictions of the Cultural Revolution. They are so named because their work has been officially denounced as "obscure" or "misty" poetry (menglong shi). The movement was initially centered around the magazine Jintian ("Today"), which was published from 1978 until 1980, when it was banned.

The four most important Misty Poets, Bei Dao, Gu Cheng , Duo Duo , and Yang Lian were exiled after the Tiananmen Square massacre. Other Misty Poets like Mang Ke and Shu Ting remain in China. Jintian was resurrected in Sweden in 1990 as a forum for expatriate Chinese writers.

Further reading

• Tony Barnstone, editor. Out of the Howling Storm: The New Chinese Poetry. Wesleyan University Press, 1993. ISBN 08192109

External links

• Jintian