ئورتاق كېچە

Uyghur poetry, heir to a thousand-year tradition, was electrified in the mid-1980s by the emergence of modernism. A group of young Uyghur poets, most prominently the Syrian-educated Exmetjan Osman, began publishing work that broke with long-established conventions of meter, symbolism, and content. Despite sometimes fierce opposition by traditionalist poets, by the end of the decade the young modernists' influence had been felt in every corner of Uyghur poetry.

Modernist challenge and traditionalist opposition have continued in waves until the present day, with heated exchanges in journals and online forums. The modernists' most recent salvo was the 2009 "Call to a Poetry of Nothingism," by Osmanjan Muhemmed Pas'an (b. 1981). This cryptic proclamation, framed in vigorous and provocative language, challenged ideas of meaning and values in poetry, and sparked a long-running debate in Uyghur literary forums.

It was around this time that Merdan Ehet'éli (b. 1991) was coming of age poetically, and the Nothingists were a significant influence in his work. He also read widely in Western and Middle Eastern poetry, primarily in Chinese translation. And like a number of contemporary Uyghur poets, he took a keen interest in continental philosophy, which helped shape his approach to poetics and language.

The Nothingist poets' concern with language and selfhood is evident throughout Merdan's work. "Common Night," one of his best-known poems, proclaims the primacy of language in the very first line. "This is a night made from words." And so the poem is set into motion, through a dazzling series of images evoking the all-encompassing night. Promise and peril are interwoven throughout, as the poem quivers with tension between the spoken and the unspoken: a night that is ink to all pens, but bosom to all secrets. A night that overwhelms with its power, and then quietly walks on.