Poet Lao Mu (formerly known as Liu Weiguo) died suddenly on the 26th of this month in the countryside of Pingxiang, Jiangxi province, at the age of 57. Lao Mu graduated from the Chinese Department of Peking University. He was a hazy poet in the 1980s and edited the New Poetry Collection, which had a profound influence on the poetry world. After the June 4 crackdown, he lived in exile in France for 26 years, once living on the streets due to mental illness, and was taken back to China by his family five years ago. According to an Apple Daily report today, Lao Mu was a classmate of Vice Premier Hu Chunhua at Peking University and published a campus journal with him.
The poet and Hu’s classmate, Lao Mu, died suddenly and went into exile in France for 26 years after June 4, Apple Daily reported today. According to the report, Hong Kong’s Sing Tao Daily quoted Pingxiang cultural celebrity Ao Guiming as saying that during the epidemic, Lao Mu was suffering from terminal lung cancer and fell on the night of June 26, puncturing a liver tumor; Lao Mu never married and had no one by his side, so he could not receive timely medical treatment after the fall and was found dead the next morning.
After the news of Lao Mu’s death, overseas pro-democracy activists Liao Yiwu, Wang Dan and others expressed their condolences on social media.
Wang Dan, Wu’er Kaixi, Zhou Fenglock, Wang Juntao, and Hu Ping, a group of 1989 pro-democracy activists, wrote: “In his youth, Lao Mu, with his romantic passion as a poet and his desire for democracy and freedom, made great efforts to change China in literature and politics. As his friends and comrades who struggled with him, we will continue to honor him with our perseverance to continue Lao Mu’s ideals. We also hope that the world will remember Lao Mu and what he once did for our nation and our time.”
The news of Lao Mu’s sudden death was circulated in the WeChat group, including the memorial text, which was not deleted.
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