As a youth in the Cultural Revolution, he was sent down to the countryside in Baiyangdian (白洋淀), where he began reading and writing poetry.
Several of his schoolmates would also become famous as members of the underground poetry movement described as "Misty" by the authorities: Bei Dao, Gu Cheng and Mang Ke.
In his early poems, there are numerous intertextual links to Western poets such as Charles Baudelaire, Marina Tsvetaeva and Sylvia Plath.
Some of his poems border on the essayistic, such as the 1984 Lessons also translated as Instruction (诲教), which spoke for China's "lost generation" as much as Bei Dao's Answer.
[2][3] He is also associated with many respected Chinese literary festivals and awards, such as Yinchuan Poetry Prize and others.