Cry of the Silver Pheasant
Contemporary Ethnic Poetry in Sichuan and Yunnan

Mark Bender

Just as it is difficult to imagine capturing all the genres, subgenres and sub-subgenres of music being listened to today, so, too, is it impossible to capture all the diversity among contemporary poetry. Yet the heterogeneity within Chinese poetry emanates not only from recent fragmentation of literary tastes (as exemplified by the split between the schools of upper- and lower-body writing), and the regional and dialectal differences among Han poets, but also the new voices of contemporary writers arising from within the ancient literary (oral and written) traditions of China's officially recognized ethnic minorities. In his essay "Cry of the Silver Pheasant," Mark Bender, a sinologist specializing in traditional Han (Chinese) and ethnic minority performance-oriented literature, explores the incredibly diverse and lively poetry world(s) thriving in the ethnic minority communities of southwest China and beyond. Bender points out that Yunnan Province alone has approximately twenty-five official ethnic groups, including the Yi, Wa, Hani, Dai, Jingpo, and Zhuang, among others, and he reveals the diverse poetry being written within these groups today by highlighting the work of poets from different ethnic groups. He offers an extended exploration of the poetry and poetics of one group in particular—the Liangshan School of Nuosu Yi poets based in Sichuan....

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