Commentary

The author of this poem is the young Taiwanese poet Shang-Wei SONG. Born in 1989, he earned his master's degree from the Graduate Institute of Sinophone Literatures at National Dong Hwa University in Taiwan and has published poetry collections such as Samsara Diary and A Swarm of Bees Without Honey.

This is a somber poem that confronts socio-economic realities, centered around the theme of "living earnestly." While earnestly applying oneself was once considered a traditional virtue, in modern reality it leads to an absurd outcome: whenever ordinary people strive to "live earnestly," they are met with docked wages, debt, and punitive consequences.

The poem weaves together numerous figures to build a tight narrative structure. It opens with "22000" (22K), a buzzword popular in Taiwan over a decade ago referring to college graduates who earned a monthly salary of just NT 22,000 (roughlyUS750). At the time, others in society criticized these low-wage earners, blaming their meager pay on a supposed lack of effort. The poet also points to an apartment measuring 40 ping (approx. 1,400 sq. ft.) priced at NT 20 million(approx.US670,000), an amount equal to 800 months (nearly 67 years) of a worker's entire salary. Through an objective lens, the poet captures the profound disillusionment of low-wage workers barred from homeownership. This sequence of numbers concretely exposes the daily pressures crushing the working class, illustrating how the capitalist market reduces human beings to quantifiable metrics. Furthermore, the poem examines economic tensions within romantic relationships: a woman rebukes a man for objectifying her, yet simultaneously demands a car and a house as criteria for choosing a partner, effectively commodifying herself.

Though written roughly a decade ago, the social conditions and anxieties captured in this poem remain widespread today, not only in Taiwan, but across many other parts of the world as well.

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The third poem titled "Burning Leaves" in A Village Life.

They offered glory or length of days

and she, who had seen death close,

had no stomach for it.

So she put on soft garments

and hid among the women

talking of children and recipes

and who had got a husband,

caro sposo.

So, circumscribed and circumstanced,

practicing petty accomplishments

and playing piano

until the possibility of playing forte

sneaked up on her slyly

and she began to write,

and cough.

Favorite line? It is quite didactic but I especially LOVE you never need anyone's audition for spring and there is this goodness in you that has no debt and no end and also what tethers you to the exquisite terrors of living (it is about the duality!the complexity!) Also how would you compare it to the obvious comparison - Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong

I am mostly easy to love
but when
I am not
don't make it
harder on me.

From Poetry (November 2024)
Here's the link: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/1615054/an-improvement-in-stairs

Hi! My mother loves to memorize poetry and song lyrics. She is an absolute compendium, it's amazing. One thing that's really fun about this is that every year at Halloween, she'll give animated retellings of folk tales and poetry, and the same will happen at Christmastime.

Recently, I've been reading through collections of poetry by Jack Prelutsky (such as "Nightmares" and "The Gargoyle on the Roof") with my own children, and I have been reading them in an animated fashion just like my mother. I was reminded of her, and I briefly thought "Great! I finally know something I can get her for Christmas!" I then realized that she might not appreciate receiving a gift so out of season in subject matter?

I'm hoping y'all can recommend some fun oral tradition compilations (maybe ones that also have illustration). They don't necessarily have to be Christmas themed, just fun to recount and not the direct opposite vibe of the season, lol!

I hope they don't come off as naive or worse. I'm just someone who's always written poetry for myself but never worked up the courage to put it out there. Now that I've finally summoned the wherewithal to try, I think using a pen name might help me a lot, but I don't really know anything about the realities of doing that. I've done some research on putting together submission packets, but there are still questions I can't find answers to. I would prefer to maintain my anonymity as tightly as possible without being unethical or excessively devious about it. 

I specifically ask about poetry because I feel like the advice may be different, since the reading public is so much smaller and more intertwined with the writing and publishing communities. Despite being a lifelong poetry reader and writer, I'm not really involved with the contemporary scene at all, so I'm just trying to figure out where the lines are drawn between standard practice, faux pas, and outright scandal. 

Who has to know your identity and how far would you go to conceal it? If you're a novelist, only your agent and presumably your publisher has to know. If you submit poetry and short fiction, do you have to reveal yourself to every magazine and journal? Do you conduct correspondence through a separate email for your pen name? Do you incorporate as an LLC to pay fees and take payments? 

How do you write your bio for submissions? What do you omit or fabricate? I'd rather come off as aloof and reclusive than try to sell an inauthentic backstory, but there are some things you can't hide without telling a lie to cover it, like your age, birthplace, residence, or education. 

Can you decline to provide an author headshot when asked? Can you provide an artistic “self-portrait” instead, or would that be seen as ridiculous? 

To what extent are publishers and editors willing to play along if you're upfront about everything? I doubt that many would be willing to support someone trying to appropriate marginalized voices for clout, but what about something like a male poet using a female pen name, or an American pretending to be European?

Is it common for male poets to use female pseudonyms and vice versa? If you look at most writing advice forums, they'll tell you it happens all the time, writers even change their pen name based on their genre. I have a feeling that might be a bit more problematic in the poetry world, but is that just my imagination? 

How self-sabotaging is it to decline appearances and interviews for the sake of anonymity? Not to get ahead of myself, but I know that readings, conferences, seminars, and other appearances are important for exposure and engagement. 

I'm aware self-publishing is probably the option that allows for the greatest control over your anonymity, but I also imagine that would require much more community engagement and social media to gain traction, which means more effort and probably more elaborate methods to maintain the ruse, when I'd really just like to focus on writing more.

Taken from the collection Lobster: And Other Things I’m Learning to Love.

Can you please help and sign this petition so we can get our poetry back from Poetizer?

https://c.org/XtDgD6rbrR

The original is titled kahan jaoge which literally translates to where will you go?