this day would mark the beginning of the Cultural Revolution with the celebrated Chinese poet Mao Zedong (pictured, left) publishing his pocket-sized "Little Red Book" of verse.

A new installment from the "Happy Hitler Artist" ThreadBorn into a peasant family in 1893, Mao was denied the classic education which other middle class Englightenment figures would enjoy. And yet despite the crushing setback of poverty, he was nurtured with an abiding love of the classics of Chinese literature.

He was particularly fond of the great Chinese poets Tang and Song who fine-tuned the use of imagery as a literary device. The application of this model is revealed in one of his most famous poem "The Gods" which ends with the powerful image "Tears fly down from a great upturned bowl of rice". By alluding to the beheading of his wife and sister by the Chinest Nationalists during the 1930s, Mao exposes both his vulnerability and the immensity of the loss.

"A poet's life isn't a dinner party... or power comes from the barrel of pen... " - reader's commentAnd yet the catalist for Mao's career in verse was a chance meeting with an obscure Vietnamese Poet. Because during his imprisonment in 1942, Nguyen Ai Qoc (pictured, right)¹ redefined the device of imagery, famously telling Mao that "When the prison doors are open, the real dragon will fly out".

Many years later, Andy Warhol would transform Mao into a global icon. And Frederic Tuten wrote the brilliant Dadaesque novel, "The Adventures of Mao on the Long March" which was published in 1971.