From
roughly 1979 to 1989, a group of poets called the Misty Poets
(Ménglóng Shi Rén) arose in post-Maoist China.
Disillusioned
by the Maoist regime, its propaganda, and its political subjugation
of both art and ideology, many Chinese poets and writers gathered
secretly together to read literature that was condemned by the
government, to write and exchange their works, and to promote ideas
of freedom and individual expression- for which many were arrested
and sentenced to long durations in prison. Others didn't fare so
well.
Zhao
Zhengkai- better known by his nom de plume, Bei Dao- was one
such poet.
It
was in 1969, after having served as a member of the paramilitary RedGuard during the Cultural Revolution, that Bei Dao's political views
radically changed as he was sent to do labor work in the squalid,
impoverished countryside of his homeland. The conditions were so
deplorable that he lost all enthusiasm for the revolution. This is
when he began, in secret, to study and read and write poetry.
Over a
period of time many small underground groups that shared Bei Dao's
sentiments, and his artistic means of expressing those sentiments,
began to form. By 1978 Bei Dao- along with fellow poet and friend,
Mang Ke- founded
an underground literary journal called Jintian
(Today).
After two years of intense surveillance, harassment, and arrests, the
Chinese government had the underground journal shut down.
Over
the years Bei Dao traveled abroad and connected with literary groups
in several countries. He happened to be in Germany when the massacre of Tiananmen Square occurred in 1989. Thought to have had a hand in
those protests, or to have influenced them somehow, the Chinese
government forced exile on our poet by denying his reentry into the
country. Bei Dao, along with several other Misty Poets, have not been
allowed back since.
*****
I
first learned about these poets in 2010 and immediately fell in love
with the works of Bei Dao, Shu Ting, and Gu Cheng. It was on this
particular day in 1949 that Bei Dao was born, and so I thought I'd
take it upon myself to honor our poet by posting on him briefly. That
said, I'd like to share a poem written by him, called The
Boundary.
The
Boundary
I want to
go to the other bank
The river
water alters the sky's colour
and alters
me
I am in the
current
my shadow
stands by the river bank
like a tree
struck by lightning
I want to
go to the other bank
In the
trees on the other bank
a
solitary startled wood pigeon
flies
towards me
Beautiful,
right? The poem was published in Bei Dao's TheAugust Sleepwalker (1990), and
translated by Bonnie S. McDougall. The poems in that collection are
said to be “all of the poems Bei Dao published between 1970 and
1986”, works that were therefore prior to his being exiled.
Strangely, though, when I first read the poem the imagery therein
lead me to believe that the poem was, in fact, about exile. Allow me
to explain, and please let me know what you think.
The
'boundary' is obviously the river water that's dividing two river
banks. The poet desires to be on the other river bank, but his
desires are painfully thwarted by the river and its current- the
river water (or boundary) representing his exile; the other bank the
poet's homeland, China.
That the river water alters the
colour of the sky, which in turn alters our poet, signifies that this
exile is an imposition on our poet's freedom (represented by the
sky), and that this imposition deeply pains (or alters) our poet, as
we'll soon see.
The narrator desperately desires to reach the
other bank, so much so that he stands there at the river's edge and
sees his shadow 'like a tree struck by lightning', indicating the
poet's depth of pain. He again, and almost mournfully, reiterates his
desire: I want to go to the other bank … but the river and its
current (his exile) prevents him.
Finally, in the last
stanza, the poet sees the trees on the other river bank. Just as the
tree struck by lightning (line 6) represented the poet and his depth
of pain, so too the trees on the other bank represent people- and
because the other bank represents China, the trees represent his
countrymen from whom he's exiled.
But what of
the wood pigeon? Note that it's startled, indicating a state of
trepidation, and that it's in the trees (plural). I take this to
indicate a general trepidation that still persists in the heart of
his countrymen, just as it did in Tiananmen Square in
1989. That the wood pigeon flies toward our beloved poet can only
indicate for me a sympathetic reaching out of his countrymen.
And
there you have it, my interpretation of Bei Dao's poem, The
Boundary. That this is what the poet
intend I am highly doubtful- as I mentioned, the poem is said to
have been written between 1970 and 1986, prior to him being exiled
in '89. Nevertheless, this was the first impression I derived from
it, and so I remain faithful to it. I would so love to know your
interpretation of it.
Thank you for stopping by. And Bei
Dao, happy birthday, my friend ...
