ABSTRACT
After a century of radical modernism, classical poetry is rapidly reclaiming cultural capital in the PRC. In his ecocritical poems, Kunming-based poet Yu Jian fuses modern poetic forms with traditional shanshui aesthetics and quotes from classical poetry. Invoking deep time consciousness, his poem “On the Ancient Road of Hubei's Xishui County: A Detour” both traverses and transcends China's cultural history when reflecting on the social and environmental consequences of economic overdevelopment and climate change. In the manner of geological strata, Yu Jian's deep lyricism builds on cultural memory and personal experiences as it reorients readers towards a plethora of syn-/aesthetic resonances which never ceased to incantate the dream of cosmic harmony arising from human and non-human creative alliances.
