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

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.

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

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

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

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.

About us

We are Transhi, a Taiwan-based literary group focused on translation. For more details, please check out our first post.: https://www.reddit.com/r/Poetry/comments/1x2bn8z/

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!

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