This thirteenth volume in Vagabond Press’ Asia Pacific is a collection of poems by three Chinese women poets, Wu Suzhen, Yue Xuan and Qing Shui. Wu, born in 1981, from Jiangxi in the hinterland of China; Yue, born in 2002, from Wenling by the East China Sea; and Qing, born in 1971, from Shanghai proper. There is a wide range of themes covered in this book. Traditional streets that are fast disappearing in small towns in Jiangxi, people suffering from depression or madness, old women in bound feet, are what Wu Suzhen are most adept at capturing in her lines. Yue Xuan, the youngest of the three, writes short and pithy poems in a dry, humorous tone, that depict the world in the eyes of a 14-year-old. Qing Shui is lyrically passionate, writing prose poems centred on nature that are sensitive and mesmerizing.
