Zheng Xiaoqiong

In the Roar of the Machine

Poems about life in the Chinese factories by a brilliant and passionate poet and workers' rights activist. This collection shines light on the human toll behind the production of cheap goods, all set in the context of classical Chinese literature, the natural environment of southern China, and the voices of the poet's own ancestors. Zheng Xiaoqiong is one of the most significant living Chinese poets whose unique poetics brings to the fore the plight of factory workers, women, and the rural poor in contemporary China, while situating these sociological concerns within a larger context that includes classical Chinese poetry, the voices of Zheng's ancestors, the natural environment of southern China, and her native Huangma Mountains in central Sichuan. Zheng spent nearly a decade working in the factories and warehouses of Guangdong province, one of the largest manufacturing centers in the world. Her poems give voice to the global economy's human toll: the twelve-hour days on the assembly line, the endless mechanical din, the injuries and drudgery, the homesick murmur of far-flung dialects in the dorms. Zheng is an advocate for worker's and women's rights, but what counters the roar of the machines in her poetry is the tenderness of her attention: "we / live, the nearby crowds that come and go / they live in my poetry, on paper, immense / yet frail, the tiny voices of these sentences / these fragile hearts."