BEI DAO BY:NICHOLAS DARDEN

A visionary and a poet

Early life Bei Dao was born August 2nd, 1949 in

Beijing. His father was an administrator and his mother was a doctor.

Teenage Life As a teenager, Bei Dao was a member

of the Red Guard, the enthusiastic followers of Mao Zedong who enforced the dictates of the Cultural Revolution, often through violent means. He later reconsidered a different path in life and became a construction worker

Adult LifeSoon after becoming a construction worker he was sent out to the mountain range outside of Beijing where he slowly fell in to a pit of depression where he began to dabble in poetry.

In 1974 Bei Dao finished his novella ‘Waves and begun’ It was comprised of sequence poems. Those became the guiding beacon for the youth of the April Fifth Democracy Movement of 1976, in which thousands peacefully demonstrated in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.

“Debasement is the password of the base,Nobility the epitaph of the noble.See how the gilded sky is coveredWith the drifting twisted shadows of the dead”

Quiet and Tremble

Translated by the author with the assistance of Chen Yan Bing and Diana Jaio

you are drawing yourselfbeing born--light's risingturning the paper-night

madness that you releasedis quiet cast by truthpride shines as if internal woundsdarken all the words

in secret tremblingthose angels in uniformsof a private schoolbecome fish, querying sea

a wind reads rutssaluting the blue silk beyondpain

Analyzing “Quiet and Tremble”

In Bei’s poem “Quiet and Tremble” Is about how someone's outwards rage or depression may have much deeper meaning. The poem has well written metaphors and hidden value you might not notice at first.

Reflections and DustIn the mirror is who you areBut it is covered in dustThe dust of othersDust everywhere The dust of thoughts , opinions,Rationalities, of hate, Ambitions, and cultureA universe of dust vast and infinite Clouding up your vision and blockingYour reflection

Displaying the poetic-ness Of nothing .

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N.p., n.d. Web. 1 May 2012. ("Wikipedia.org")Zhiping, Wang.

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