The poetics of diasporas: Reconceptualizing home and identity in two Hong Kong poets

Abstract

This article examines some shared poetic texts that speak figuratively of the way the people of Hong Kong have managed to perceive and experience their lives. My analysis articulates the symbolic dimension of our sociocultural world through a process of rewriting and reconstruction. It traces the identifying characteristics of the Hong Kong imaginary arising from the cultural experiences and socio-historical conditions of specific periods of Hong Kong history and focuses on one of the meaning-producing forms of cultural significations-poetry- as a means of discovering the shared world of the cultural imaginary in the literary sphere. This article explores the notions of home and diaspora, which inform the construction of place and locality and exemplifies the crucial role Hong Kong plays in the Chinese diasporic experience, and poetry's capacity to translate the diasporic experience into social and cultural critique. It focuses on the work of Ou Waiou (1911-1995) and You Jing (b. 1966) because both poets responded personally and politically to the conditions leading to the Chinese diasporas and their poetry sheds light on the ways in which both geographical and intellectual displacement served as a critical device to reflect on the notions of identity and home, colonization and globalization.