The newest issue of Chinese Literature Today features Heather Inwood on “Poetry for the People? Modern Chinese Poetry in the Age of the Internet.” Here’s a pull quote:

In China, existing discussions of media gatekeeping focus overwhelmingly on questions related to free speech and government censorship. It is important to note that although state-led surveillance and control of the media are inevitable in China (as they are in many countries around the world), these government-led measures are far from being the most important motivation for the gatekeeping of online literature. Just as gatekeepers of the media select and shape the messages that reach the public, gatekeepers of modern Chinese literature decide the social reality and public face of literature as it is seen by the world. Gatekeepers of literature are those with an inordinate amount of power over the publication and evaluation of literary texts, and include publishers, editors, critics, translators, academic researchers, and poets themselves. For readers of Chinese literature who are not part of the country’s lively literary scenes, it is especially easy to take the choices and standards of China’s literary gatekeepers for granted, and to assume that the writers they include in prominent literary anthologies or award with high-profile literary prizes represent, by virtue of their selection, the very best of China’s literary scenes. I would argue, thus, that any questions of quality and representativeness should be accompanied by efforts to think critically about the mechanisms used to determine literary standards and put certain writings on public display.