A poetic movement that arose from youth dissident in Mao Era China during the "Democracy Movement" from 1976-1980 when, after the Tiananmen Square Massacre, many of the influential poets were exiled for anti-government rhetoric. They were called "Misty" (朦胧) which literally meant "obscure" because they usually wrote in riddles or nonsensical ways. Most of China during the Cultural Revolution was uneducated and those that were went into exile for being intellectuals. Out of this oppression rose the Misty Poets and the "Tiananmen Generation" before the government put an even tighter cap on freedom of expression. Even still, many of the poets inspired separatist movements though they never came to fruition.
Perhaps the final hour has come I leave behind no testament Only a pen, to give to my mother. In a time without heroes, I only want to be an individual.
The horizon of peace Separates the order of the living and dead. I can only choose the heavens And I will not kneel on the ground Allowing the executioner to look tall The better to obscure the wind of freedom.
From the bullet holes of the stars There will seep forth a blood-red dawn.
Bei Dao, born Zhao Zhenkai on August 2, 1949 was an admant follower of Mao Zedong as a teenager but realized the error of his ways during the '60s and he then worked in the Pro-democracy movement publishing a magazine called Jintian (Today) that was the spearhead for Misty Publication and marks the start of the Misty Poetic Movement. During the Tiananmen Square protests and following massacre , Bei was in Berlin. Nonetheless, he was exiled for 20 years because his poems were present on banners of many protesters in the rally. Bei Dao still continues to publish works and has been a professor at many universities all over Europe and the Americas, while being repeatedly nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in Literature.
Analysis and Literary Devices
This poem can be seen as an example of the Misty Poetic movement because it was the Poem that sent Bei Dao into exile for being labeled as anti-government sentiment when it was seen on banners in the Tiananmen Square Incident. It gave pro-democracy protesters something to rally behind-the need for freedom and indiviualism, things that weren't present in Mao era China and still aren't that present. The speaker is gender less so anyone could relate to wanting to fight and die for freedom when there are no heroes or people in power who wanted to help the youth rise up. The line "The horizon of peace/ Separates the order of the living and dead" is a Metaphor or, A thing regarded as representative or symbolic of something else, esp. something abstract because when the speaker refers to the "living and dead" he doesn't literally mean people who are dead and alive, he means those who are "alive" for the revolution and the cause for individuality while those that are "dead" are so because they act like sheep and do not challenge the oppressive government they live under. The poem also uses Personification or,The attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something nonhuman in the line "From the bullet holes of the stars"because stars cannot literally have bullet holes, he is instead referring to the children of the revolution as the stars and thus personifying the stars.