About 25,000 pages of new material have been added to the digital collection of unofficial poetry from China at Leiden University Libraries, the online archive of a groundbreaking cultural tradition of our time. (Scroll down for a full list of titles in the digital collection.)

To celebrate the DIY tradition in Chinese poetry, Leiden University Libraries is hosting a symposium on Friday 22 November 2024 from 3.15 to 5 pm CET, followed by drinks. All are welcome, in person or online.

Registration is required for in-person attendance. If you register for the livestream, you’ll get a reminder closer to the date. Alternatively, go straight to the livestream on the day.

The digital collection of unofficial poetry

Key agents of emancipation and renewal after the Mao era, unofficial poetry journals are hugely influential but hard to find. With guidance and support from poets, editors, and collectors in the source community, Leiden University Libraries is making its unique collection of this material freely accessible online, for viewing and downloading.

The collection was built by Maghiel van Crevel during regular fieldwork trips since the 1990s and continues to grow. In addition to journals, it contains many unofficially published books, including both individual collections and multiple-author anthologies.

The symposium

Speakers (15 minutes each, followed by Q&A):

• Marc Gilbert (Leiden University Libraries):
  Unofficial Poetry Publications from China: Where Every Word Counts.
• Zhou Zan (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences):
  Who Made and Makes the Space for Unofficial Poetry?
• Nanne Timmer (Leiden University):
  Unexpected Cuban-Chinese Connections: Poetic Contagions and Samizdat Writing.
• Bao Hongwei (University of Nottingham):
  Queer Poetic Voices in Unofficial Journals.

Figure 1: Symphony of the Fire God.

Maghiel van Crevel will MC.

This year’s upgrade

Some gems from this year’s upgrade of the digital collection:

• Huang Xiang’s Symphony of the Fire God (火神交响诗), written in the underground during the Cultural Revolution and published in 1979 by the Guiyang-based Enlightenment (启蒙) group. (Fig.1)
• The Third Generation (第三代人, 1983), a legendary journal out of Sichuan edited by Bei Wang and Zhao Ye whose name lives on in the vast literary-historical category of ‘Third Generation poetry’ (第三代诗歌).
• Chun Sue’s / Chun Shu’s groundbreaking series Post-80 Poetry (八十后诗选) made in Beijing in the early 2000s, full of irreverent and provocative work that drove establishment critics up the wall. (Fig. 2)
• A series of exquisitely made books in the Black Whistle Poetry Project (黑哨诗歌出版计划) run by editor Fang Xianhai and designer Lu Tao out of Hangzhou since the late 2000s. The Black Whistle project exemplifies the threefold drive behind unofficial publishing: documentation, the circumvention of censorship, and bibliophilia. (Fig. 3)

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