On March 9, 2022, the list of members of the 10th Special Committee of the China Writers Association was announced, with a total of ten special committees for novels, poetry, essays, reportage, children's literature, ethnic minority literature, online literature, film and television literature, science fiction literature, and literary theory criticism.
I've written a few articles about poetry, so I'm interested in this list of poetry committees. Of course, who should be on this list, I don't know. However, I have a more "stupid" approach, which is to compare this list with the previous list and see what the difference is.
The picture above is the "List of the Tenth Poetry Committee" on the left and the list of the previous session on the right. First of all, the position of director has changed, from Ye Yanbin to Ji Di Ma jia. At the Tenth National Congress of the Chinese Writers Association, which ended at the end of last year, Ji Di Maga was elected vice chairman of the Writers Association and became the new director of the Poetry Committee.
Ye Yanbin (image from the Internet)
This Ye Yanbin was the editor-in-chief of the Poetry Journal at that time, and according to common sense, it should be the new editor-in-chief of the Poetry Journal, that is, Li Shaojun, to hold this position. However, Li Shaojun, the editor-in-chief of the Poetry Journal, is not only not the director, but even a member of the committee.
Li Shaojun is a national member of the Writers Association, and Zhang Zhihao and Lei Pingyang, who are also members of the Writers Association, are on this list. Yang Qingxiang, who gave Li Shaojun the title of "natural poet" and proposed "new scar literature", is also on this list.
Not knowing it, this ratio actually found that Huo Junming had also disappeared. Huo Junming is the deputy editor-in-chief of the Poetry Journal, and the last term was still a member, and this session is not a member. In other words, in this list, the Poetry Journal can be described as grainless.
Huo Junming (Image from the Internet)
What is this committee for? The responsibilities of this "special committee" mainly include creative research, work discussion, recommendation of excellent works, theoretical research, project demonstration, and rights and interests protection. The members of the special committee are hired by the Secretariat of the China Writers Association for a term of five years.
From this point of view, this special committee is still very important. "The special committees are composed of writers, theoretical critics, editors, and literary organization workers with high achievements and prestige who are enthusiastic about literary work." Therefore, this list of special committees should represent the best in the field.
The list of personnel hired by the Secretariat of the Chinese Writers Association is not known how it came out. Elected? Recommended? Applying? Or is it decided directly? We don't know. When this list was published, it only said that "the Secretariat of the Chinese Writers Association recently studied and decided on this list", but as for how it was decided, it was not said.
Li Shaojun (Image from the Internet)
As the "only central poetry journal", the editor-in-chief and deputy editor-in-chief of the Poetry Journal are not even in the poetry committee, which is indeed somewhat unexpected. As the editor-in-chief of the Poetry Journal, Li Shaojunna should be "highly accomplished and prestigious" and should meet the conditions for being selected for this list. Could it be that there is another reason?
"Poetry Journal" seems to have been a bit "unsmooth" in recent years, and has always been the core journal of the Chinese, but it is not in 2018, and it is still not in 2021. No, in the list of poetry committees that have just been released, the "Poetry Journal" has no grain. What's wrong with Poetry Journal?