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.
RODRIGO TOSCANO
From the rooftop I memorize his eyes, / gold and green like a dying leaf. I kiss / his kite with mine before cutting the string. // I meet aunts, uncles, cousins, cousin’s kids, dad’s cousins / singing songs about a honeyed sleep / nights before my sister’s wedding.
JULIA TORO
Sitting around the white painted wood and metal table / that hosted the best dinners of my childhood / my uncle is sharing / his many theories of the world / the complexities of his thoughts are / reserved for Norwegian, with some words here and there / to keep his English-speaking audience engaged
DYLAN CARPENTER
I have heard the symptoms play upon world’s corroded lyre, / Pictured my Wallonia and seen the waterfall afire. // I have seen us pitifully surrender, one by one, the Wish, / Frowning at a technocrat who stammers—Hör auf, ich warne dich! // Footless footmen, goatless goatherds, songless sirens, to the last, Privately remark—
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