“It’s indeed surprising,” said Chris Song, an assistant professor focusing on English and Chinese translation at the University of Toronto Scarborough. “I’m surprised they came out in such a tightening environment where many poems depicting the dark sides of society, or defying the authorities’ general ideology, have been censored.”
One poem titled “Her Teeth” refers to a mother of eight children found chained to an outdoor shed in Xuzhou in rural Jiangsu province, a case that caused a rare wave of public outrage and online activism. The poet writes that the women’s teeth, which were reportedly missing, are “the most fragile in the world,” yet they “remain on the iron chain/biting this nation’s heart.”
Another, titled “Unnecessary Leave from School,” received more than 1.6 million views on the microblog Weibo even as versions of it were being wiped from the platform. In the poem, the author, a student at the Central Academy for Fine Arts, questions the lockdown measures restricting students to their dorms except for “necessary” activities such as “internships … or prep classes for IELTS,” the English-language proficiency exam.
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