Five important misty poets, Bei Dao, Gu Cheng, Shu Ting, He Dong and Yang Lian, were exiled after the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.
The work of the Misty Poets has had a strong influence on the lyrics of China's first generation of rock musicians, particularly Cui Jian.
Although it was banned during the Cultural Revolution to publish literature and art [citation needed], an extensive underground poetry circulated, which was written under extreme conditions: Gu Cheng (Chinese: 顾城 Gu Cheng) says that he started his poems in a pigsty, Bei Dao (Chinese: 北岛) wrote his first plays in the evening after work.
[6][7] The first issue was published with the seminal poem "The Answer" (Chinese: 回答 Huida), which can be regarded as a paradigm for the obscure nature of misty poetry.
The publication of further Menglong poems immediately initiated a year-long debate on the freedom of the individual and the author and his commitment to society, the state, and the party.