Lamb Style
Lamb Style refers to a controversial poem Xu Fan which won the Lu Xun Prize for Poetry 2010. The verse, which according to online critics lacks both rhyme and meter, was coincidentally written by a senior Communist Party official called Che Yan’gao. Yan’gao sounds rather like the word for lamb in Chinese.
A typical comment on the poem was “It’s a hideous mess.” As more and people questioned the award, both the Lu Xun Prize and its review board came under attack.
Che Yan’gao, 54, is the head of the Communist Party internal discipline department in Wuhan, as well as a member of the Chinese Writers Association. Interviewed by Sina.com about the criticisms of his poem, he said he had tried to create a vivid image of the famous Chinese actress Xu Fan in vernacular Chinese.He described his verse as an experimental literary creation.
