Chen Jun

Compared to other contemporary Chinese poets, Chen Jun would seem to have a very strange syntax, influenced by Zhu Yingdan (1913-1983) whom he rediscovered while researching earlier poets. Over the last ten years he has introduced readers to Zhu Yingdan, and presented a broader picture of the birth of modernist poetry in China, as well as non-modernist side streams.

In a nutshell: after Hu Shi started New Poetry in 1917 under the influence of Anglophone poetry, Chinese modernism evolved further, encouraged in the 1930s by student-poets who returned to China from France, the United Kingdom and the US. When the mainstream moved to southwest China during the Sino-Japanese War, a small group of poets remained in Beijing and formed a circle named after Fei Ming (1901-1967), who was born in Hubei but became father of Beijing literature. They rejected Western influence but took the late Tang and Song poetry (900-1270 CE) as their models and developed a new free verse.

Zhu Yingdan was one of these poets and carried on this “Chineseness” in his poetry even during the 1970s,when the mainstream then was Mao’s style or party-singing propaganda while on the avant garde side was Western-indulged Misty poetry led by Bei Dao.  Chen Jun was one of the new avant garde generation in the 1990s but became part of a “post garde minority” in the 21st century, marked by a strong flavor of 'antiquity' - free verse with traditional diction mixed with contemporary or timeless imagery.
Chen Jun is featured in Poets from the Land of Chu

LINK
Letter from Beijing 3: How would Li Bai Write Today?