Mao's Poetry

Dennis Perrin/Nancy Bauer bauerperrin at mindspring.com
Sat Jan 6 04:59:38 PST 2001



>Mao of course wrote Chinese rather than Latin -- and he happened
>to write quite good poetry in Chinese. So did Ho in Vietnamese
>incidentally.


>Carrol

Yes, yes, and Stalin liked to read several newspapers a day. Years ago I house-sat for a friend who had some of Mao's poetry, as well as an album of the music of the Cultural Revolution, and I must say I found it all sterile agitprop. (Some of the songs were amusing, but all essentially ended praising the Great Leader as He reached to Heaven.) Around the same time, C-SPAN televised an RCP celebration of Mao, complete with poetry readings. Now *that* was hilarious! I wished I'd taped it so I could add a laughtrack and give it as a gift to friends: "The Maoist Poetry Slam."

DP



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