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A top graft-buster in Wuhan, Hubei, has sparked heated online debate after winning a prestigious literary award for a series of rambling, unorthodox poems that run roughshod over traditional concepts of verse and meter. 
But it is his odes praising the beauty of two mainland actresses that have set message boards alight.
Che Yangao, a member of the Wuhan Municipal Committee Standing Committee and secretary of the city's Commission for Discipline Inspection, won the Lu Xun Literary Prize for his 167-page collection of poems Yearning for Warmth, published last year. 
He was one of five writers lauded in the poetry and song category of the award, announced by the All China Writers' Association  on Tuesday. 
However, Che's selection has proved one of the most controversial in the award's 14-year history - due partly to his unconventional, simplistic writing style and his position  of authority. 
For example, in Youth Turned Into Thread by a Spinning Wheel, Che laments watching his mother grow old, spending nights working a spinning wheel.
At that moment, a flickering oil lamp appears before my eyes 
In the shadow of the light is Mother's silhouette 
Mother's hair was originally as black as night 
She has followed the spinning wheel on too long a road at night 
Back is twisted 
The top of her head is covered with snow, whiter than cotton 
Mother's youth has been turned by the spinning wheel into thread in her hands.
Although some in China's internet community have leapt to defend the official's literary efforts, the majority have expressed shock - questioning the judges' definition of the term 'poetry' and asking whether writing it was an appropriate use of high officials' time and energy. 
The news that a high-ranking graft-buster spends his days penning verses is raising hackles among a frustrated populace. 
Two poems Che, 55, wrote in praise of actresses Crystal Liu Yifei and Xu Fan - which do not appear to have been part of the winning collection - have provoked some of the harshest criticism. 
'This clearly shows this person has an empty spirit, and is childish,' wrote one poster using the name 'DD' beneath a poem entitled The person who reminded me of mother's love. '[He] has nothing to do, and spends the whole day thinking of Feifei [Crystal Liu]. If you don't get on with proper work, you should be an ordinary person; it's preposterous that you can be a leader and yet not work hard for the ordinary people.' 
Both Liu and Xu are natives of Wuhan, and Che apparently wrote poems to them for Great Wuhan,  a local magazine. 
The ode to Liu reads more like truncated prose than conventional verse - what the judges called Che's signature 'lamb' style - and anecdotes how he knew the 23-year-old actress as a young girl. 
Liu Yifei and I met very early, at the time she was still small 
Studying in the third grade of primary school 
 She once went on stage with my daughter 
The camera in my hand photographed a young Indian girl. 
Che recalls telling the headmaster 'Poyang Street Primary School will be proud', and that although he and his wife 'regularly watch' her films, 'I still miss that juvenile Liu Yifei'. 
In the verses about Xu, Che laments never having crossed paths with the famous actress. 
Xu Fan's beauty is the pure woman's beauty 
I have always wanted to see her, until today I have yet to fulfil my wish 
Actually when small, she and I lived incredibly close 
One wall apart. 
The Lu Xun Literary Prizes were established in 1996 and named after the pen name of Zhou Shuren (1881-1936), one of the leaders of the May Fourth Movement and considered by many to be the father of modern Chinese literature. 
The latest round of prizes were announced on Tuesday, citing winners for novels, short stories, reporting, poetry and song, prose and essays, and literary criticism published between 2007 and 2009.



Acid prose for graft-buster's poetry award