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WE ARE EACH A CACTUS IN THE CITY: Selected Poems by Wu Jinxiong Paperback – 1 Mar. 2022


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The poetry of Wu Jinxiong is characterised by the glow and the shadows of a particular intimacy. The reader often has the sense of overhearing meditations late at night, meditations that may open out into memories of infancy, of early years in the countryside, of life as a young man amidst the bright lights of the city, of friends and relatives now far away or who are no more. the art of poetry itself, and what it means to be alone with language. Wu Jonxiong is not afraid to to acknowledge and share the emotions that accompany solitude, the creative process and nostalgia. He shows us how the past becomes the reservoir for future work and composition. He also shares with the reader those frustrations when the words refuse to come, when language will not dance to the music of the poet’s meditations.

During the windy season a young man climbs over mountain after mountain ocean
A herd of horses galloping behind him, ocean waves
The first feature to notice is that this is cast in the present tense.

The memory is so vivid it is as if the experience is unfolding now. The experience is completely waves and horses are all linked into one overwhelming whole. These lines communicate the youthful experience of a vital, dynamic universe, where all is interrelated with the self.

And later in the poem we read:
The mountains are a frozen stampede of horses

This is a mesmerising line which links back to the galloping waves of the ocean, and that transformative energy perceived even in the geological and geomorphological processes of time.

In ‘My Childhood Toy is a Buffalo’ we find a less visionary recollection which is nonetheless a delightfully

The family’s most valuable property
Led by my little hand on a linen rope Going to and from the mountains every day

Other poems deal with the poet’s experiences as a young man among the bright lights of the city, far from the rural setting evoked above. In the poem ‘The Moonlight Falls to the Ground’ we read:

We used to revel in the noisy moonlight Catching young dreams and hectic city buses

but the poem goes on to recall how the revellers all ended up going their separate ways, eventually becoming strangers once again. The poem reflects on the passing of time, and how the moonlight proves to be more illuminating than those brash city lights:

The moonlight falls continuously and the truths of life continue to emerge

Here those long and sinuous lines with their smooth and rhythmic unfolding provide a glowing and reassuring sense of time’s incessant motion.

Elsewhere the effects of time seem less benign, as in ‘Former Lovers’:

We are part of each other’s pasts
We are not as important as we used to think
Maturity has made us accept everything in life
The threads go their own way after crossing

and this poem ends with the devastating line ‘I age in despair’.

A particularly poignant and heartfelt poem about time and loss is ‘Father’s Pipe’. The poet remembers how after his father died most of his belongings were discarded. But the poet chose to keep his father’s pipe:

On the deep night of that black anniversary each year I put the pipe in my mouth empty of tobacco
I inhale and exhale silently while
Father’s breath sobs in my throat

In other poems, such as ‘The Night I Left Home’, we understand that communication was not always easy between father and son. So the lines about the pipe quoted above attain a special emotional intensity.

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Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Cam Rivers Publishing (1 Mar. 2022)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 47 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1912603624
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1912603626
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 13.97 x 0.28 x 21.59 cm

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