Poems by JINJIN XU
Image by Xu YuanYan
Table of Contents
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JinJin Xu is a writer and filmmaker from Shanghai. She is the winner of the Poetry Society of America’s George Bogin Memorial Prize, and her debut chapbook There Is Still Singing in the Afterlife is forthcoming in November from Radix Media.
PAOLA ASSAD BARBARINO
Sometimes I am emboldened, / I decide to stand in the people’s balcony / I decide it is Maundy Thursday
I decide to place a priest behind me that can speak to the people behind / my back / I decide to put out the fire and light my throat / scream
ELIAS SADAQ
I serve out my conscription / sleep in a bunk bed / for four cold months / in the engineer regiment at Skive Garrison / in a room with three other men / I fuck the colonel / the only sign that time is passing / is a pile of snow outside the window / that grows smaller
PREETI VANGANI
With vignettes, I could plumb its narrative arc to become a force propelling the book forward. It also felt haunting yet warm that the mothers kept reappearing throughout the life of this grief. That repetition created a chorus of voices that angers and despairs, yet cradles the speaker.
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