Poetry of the Chinese Diaspora: A Carnival Sense of the World

ABSTRACT This essay examines poetry of the Chinese diaspora in the light of Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of literary carnival. At the heart of Bakhtin’s theory lies a vision of literature as comprising various forces in a process of constant shifts and movements that confront a canonical centre. Chinese diaspora poetry, long understood as a marginal literary production in North America, presents an interesting case for our examination of the epistemic preoccupations in the field of literary criticism. What we need in the study of Chinese diaspora poetry is a carnivalistic mode of thinking, or rather unthinking, which is not subject to aesthetic and ideological ‘assimilation from monologic positions.’ Starting from a marginal location, Chinese diaspora poetry has been undergoing a process in which it slowly legitimates the existence of its own styles against the limiting ideological horizons. Moreover, as the notion of carnival suggests, Chinese diaspora poetry itself is not pure or monolithic, but rather multivalent and polyglot; and for the same reason, a ‘carnival sense of the world,’ which accommodates heteroglossical and heterogeneous performances, inscribes a poetic affirmation of cultural difference that allows Chinese diaspora poets to achieve self-definition and self-validation.