The Misty Poets (Chinese: 朦胧诗人; pinyin: Ménglóng Shīrén) are a group of 20th century Chinese poets who reacted against the restrictions of the Cultural Revolution. They are so named because their work has been officially denounced as "obscure", "misty", or "hazy" poetry (menglong shi). The movement was initially centered on the magazine Jintian (Chinese: 今天; pinyin: Jīntiān; literally "Today"), which was published from 1978 until 1980, when it was banned.
Guo Lusheng is among the earliest poets of the zhiqing generation poets and was an inspiration for several of the original Misty Poets. Four important misty poets, Bei Dao, Gu Cheng, Duo Duo and Yang Lian, were exiled after the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. Jintian was resurrected in Sweden in 1990 as a forum for expatriate Chinese writers.
The work of the Misty Poets has had a strong influence on the lyrics of China's first generation of rock musicians, particularly Cui Jian.
Read more about Misty Poets: List of Misty Poets
Famous quotes containing the words misty and/or poets:
“Those flowers, that gate,
These misty parks and motors, lacerate
Simply by being over; you
Contract my heart by looking out of date.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1985)
“We who with songs beguile your pilgrimage
And swear that Beauty lives though lilies die,
We Poets of the proud old lineage
Who sing to find your hearts, we know not why,”
—James Elroy Flecker (1884–1919)