The "Today" group attracted considerable controversy during the early 1980s, and the initially derogatory term of "Misty Poets" was applied to them at this time.

In 1983, Yang's poem "Norlang" (the name of a waterfall in Tibet) was criticised as part of the Anti-Spiritual Pollution Campaign, and a warrant was put out for his arrest.

In 2024, he received the Zbigniew Herbert International Literary Award having been described as "one of China’s most eminent living poets and an unwavering freedom of speech campaigner".

[4] Since 2005, he is professor at European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland,[1] and artistic director of the Unique Mother Tongue[5] series of international poetry-arts events held periodically in London.

The books of translated Yang Lian's poems in other languages include German, French, Italian, Japanese, Danish, Swedish, Slovenian, Arabic, Portuguese, Hungarian, among others.

This edition of Yang Lian's poems and Ai Weiwei's visual images was realized by the publishing house Damocle Edizioni – Venice in 200 numbered copies on Fabriano Paper.