Abstract: In the 1940s，there was a duo of democratic discourse and modernist poetic discourse as well as “discourse negotiation”in Yuan Kejia’s theory on the modernization of New Poetry. They finally converged into a unique Chinese modernism in pursuit of democracy. Different from the dominant mainstream Leftwing democratic poetry，Yuan proposed the concept of democratic culture as an intermediary between poetic discourse and democratic discourse. In his mind，democratic culture，covering a wider range than democratic politics，is more valuable. Hence，he advocated a shift from enthusiasm in democratic politics to the cultivation of a democratic culture. In Yuan’s view，democratic poetry，even if it was the poetry of democratic culture，needed the“difficulty”device of modernism. Yet，the“obscurity”problem has always accompanied modernism；when political democracy was reduced and replaced by cultural democracy， “democratic culture”itself had also to be“obscure。”Democratic culture has constituted a cultural identity，often forgotten，of Chinese modernist poetry，and“obscurity，”as an offbeat way to connect democracy and poetry，is also a cultural destiny.

Key words: Yuan Kejia, Mu Dan, modernization of New Poetry, obscure, democratic culture, modernism