Justin Schwartz wrote:
> Mao's poetry isn't bad in the
> original, at least the early stuff. It's pretty conventional, she says, but
> quite able.
"It's pretty conventional" may or may not be a negative in respect to any literary work -- it depends on genre. And genre here, I would think, is not so much "revolutionary poetry" as "Public Figure Poetry." And for that genre there is available in English a rather striking poem to be used as a benchmark as it were.
[The doubt of future foes]
The doubt of future foes exiles my present joy, And wit me warns to shun such snares as threaten mine annoy. For falsehood now doth flow and subject faith doth ebb, Which would not be if reason ruled or wisdom weaved the web. But clouds of toys untried do cloak aspiring minds, Which turn to rain of late repent by course of changEd winds. The top of hope supposed, the root of ruth will be, And fruitless all their graffEd gu9les, as shortly ye shall see. The dazzled eyes with pride, which great ambition blinds, Shall be unseeled by worthy wights whose foresight falsehood finds. The daughter of debate that eke discord doth sow Shall reap no gain where former rule hath taught still peace to grow. No foreign banished wight shall anchor in this port; Our realm it brooks no stranger's face, let them elsewhere resort. Our rusty sword with rest shall first his edge employ To poll the tops that seek such change and gape for joy.
(Elizabeth I, from _The Art of English Poesy_, 1589)
They did indeed poll the top of the foreign wight, Mary Stuart.
This too is quite traditional, in a widespread metric of the time, the "Fourteener." One might compare Mao's verse letter to a comrade whose wife had also died in the revolution (as had Mao's first wife) or his bit of verse on Revolutionary Red Peppers.
Carrol