A Chinese Poet

Abstract

A just estimate of wartime Chinese poetry must await better days of Chinese politics. A large tract of land north of the Yellow River remains to be explored. One hears vaguely that Yan’an, where most poets of pre-war eminence are, has experimented on new forms. They are not academic, these forms, nor pretty-pretty ivory tower. They are, one hears, adaptations of folk songs, very often strung together with harvest dances. But here one must end one’s hearsay and come back to the young Kunming group.