ИСТИНА

Chinese poetic tradition represents such an enclosed self-centered system that it seems almost impossible to imagine a bilingual poet working simultaneously with two languages – one standing for an alternative cultural milieu, the other being Chinese. Thus it looks highly significant to explore what changes in the situation (if any) may one observe in the realm of contemporary Chinese poetry with its obvious openness to foreign influences and the important shifts in the poet’s persona. The first part of this exploration is carried out through an analysis of the poets’ critical and theoretical writing elaborating themes of poetic language and cultural identity. This is further examined in a series of interviews with contemporary Chinese poets representing different faces of the multiethnic Chinese society, each coming from a different locality and possessing a distinct individual background. The result shows discrepancies between the projected ideal identity of a globalized ‘Chinese poet’ and the vision of a bilingual Chinese poet as one rooted in the culture of the ethnical minorities. The second part of the exploration is dedicated to a case-study of the works by an Australian-Chinese poet Ouyang Yu 欧阳煜 who represents a unique case of ‘large-scale’ bilingualism where both languages in use are carriers of truly independent poetic traditions. Ouyang Yu uses several strategies for constructing his multicultural identity through the poetic text. He mixes languages within the space of a single poem, indulges in wordplay, puns and creation of new words, maintaining an illusion that it’s the reader and not the author who is in fact an alien in need of the poet to guide him through the unfamiliar linguistic landscape. Simultaneously he enjoys using allusions, citations and twists on the tradition that root him in the collective memory of the nation – thus creating an impression of being at home in both cultural pools.