I want to own a newsstand,
small,
enough to hold the confusion of middle age.
Its roof should be low Rainrainrawith tile eaves
sheltering the tired doves.

When I’m not around,
my little love takes my place.
She sits there Rainrainralike a white flower against a blue wall.
She’s illiterate Rainrainiisurrendering
books to the customers.

After school,
children arrive
eating melon seeds,
observing life’s grave consequences.

I want my stand in Shanghai or Beijing
where light runs day and night.
Some customers find a seat there,
flip through the white paper
drawing lanterns one after another.

我想拥有一个报亭

我想拥有一个报亭
小小的
放得下苍茫的中年
它的屋顶要低 Rainrain瓦檐的那种
经常落着飞倦的鸽子

我不在的时候
接替我的是我小小的爱人
她蓝底白花的 Rainrain坐在那里
她不识字 Rain把书册
要舍不舍地递给客人

放学了
孩子也会来到这里
一边嗑着瓜子
一边看着生活的庄重

它最好是在上海或者北京
有光线昼夜疾行
有一些人在亭边坐下来
随手拿起摊上的白纸
画下一盏盏马灯

—

Nianxi Chen, born 1970 in Northern China, began writing poems in 1990. In 1999, he left his hometown and labored as a miner for 16 years. In 2015, he couldn’t continue work due to occupational disease. In 2016, he was awarded the Laureate Worker Poet Prize. His rise to fame as a “migrant worker poet” was featured in a 2021 New York Times article. Chen’s poetry book, Records of Explosion provides lyrical documentation of the hidden costs behind China’s financial boom. Chen’s poems in translation have appeared in Rattle (2022) and will appear in Plume (forthcoming).

Melisa Cahnmann-Taylor, Professor of Language and Literacy Education at the University of Georgia, is the author of a book of poems, Imperfect Tense (2016) and five other books on the arts of language and education: Enlivening Instruction with Drama and Improv (2021), Teachers Act Up: Creating Multicultural Community Through Theatre (2010) and Arts-Based Research in Education, first and second editions (2008; 2018; third edition, In Press). The Creative Ethnographer’s Notebook, a creative writing guide authored with Kristina Jacobsen, will be published by Routledge (2024). Her poems, translations, and essays have appeared in The Georgia Review, American Poetry Review, Poet Lore, Barrow Street, Plume, Tupelo, Rattle, Hawaii Pacific Review, and elsewhere.

Kuo Zhang Kuo Zhang is an Assistant Professor in Education at Siena College and received her PhD in TESOL & World Language Education at the University of Georgia. Her poem, “One Child Policy” was awarded second place in the 2012 Society for Humanistic Anthropology (SHA) Poetry Competition held by the American Anthropological Association. Her poems have appeared in Roadrunner Review, Lily Poetry Review, Bone Bouquet, K’in, DoveTales, North Dakota Quarterly, Literary Mama, Mom Egg Review, Adanna Literary Journal, Raising Mothers, MUTHA Magazine, Journal of Language and Literacy Education, and Anthropology and Humanism.