On Verse Going Viral: China's New Media Scene

On Verse Going Viral: China's New Media Scene, by Heather Inwood. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2014. Pp. 274. $30.00 (paper), $75.00 (cloth).Why is contemporary so lonely (4) in time of commercialization and mass media? Along with such poignancy is paradoxical need to safeguard the elite literary tradition of through blatant collusions with the market and mass media. In with long tradition in and cultural memory tethered to contemporary in China has supposedly failed in its dual of history--- writing and nation---building, and has thereby lost the aura of the art. As much as these sentiments may echo claims of the death of poetry, Heather Inwood has found altered but vibrant scene in contemporary China.Verse Going Viral showcases uproarious scenes online, in print, in oral forms, and in the news. This book defers aesthetic judgments; rather, it challenges readers' assumptions about what can become in its encounter with new media. Avant---garde poems like those by the School of Rubbish and Lower Body (which rhyme with themes like shit and sex), incidental collisions between poets in face--- to---face events like the Big Square Poetry Festival and the Lushan Famous Poets Summit, and the self---propelled popularization of in the news are examples of the redefined scene in China that has pushed itself to the foreground. Even more notable, if the authoritative imperative of the government is presupposed to be inherent defect of the cultural scene in China, can these supposedly censored media platforms support viral prosperity of contemporary poetry?Although at first sight these case studies appeared to me (as media researcher) more like online activism, commercial forums, and marketing campaigns than part of the they exemplify the inheritance of these forms from the poetic tradition. These case studies highlight inconsistencies and paradoxical situations: the complexity of the reactions of poets, groups, and audiences in their settling on terms with what has been to many the art of cultural and historical mission (shiminggan) in the nation. The linkage between and new media is singular, revealing media---inflated cultural sphere coinciding with the unfulfilled collective need to consolidate national imagination. The Chinese scene is simultaneously an arena and a live scene, where cultural politics are intertwined with the market, the state, and the dynamics of the media.What is stimulating in juxtaposing and new media is the allusion to affinity between the fragmented, viral aesthetic forms of new media and the expressions of poetic creativity. Together with such affinity, the political backgrounds of are also colored by hopes and doubts about the emerging new media scene. More specifically, the cultural imagination of nation of poetry (shiguo) is at the same time diluted by vulgar (meisu) practices in on the participatory platforms of new media and enriched by the liberating spirit and the envisioned expressive potential of media---dependent scenes. This encounter of and new media further complicates the gatekeeping practice of the scene as well as that of the government. Instead of straightforward media control, constant negotiations have taken place among economic calculation, government interests, and aesthetic values. In recognizing this, Verse Going Viral explains the dynamics of cultural production in China which are irreducible to dichotomized analyses of central control and local resistance, official discourse and the popular voice, and the taming and the subsistence of condescending temper in poetry.The cultural---studies approach of this book highlights what is often set aside as mere context in studies focusing on the texts of poems, as Inwood explains that her reason for treating as culture is that the meanings and uses of in China extend far beyond the assemblages of words that some would call 'poem' (6). …