Farmer breathes life into poems

Chinese farmer Yu Xiuhua reads her poems in her home. [Photo/Xinhua]

"Compared with poems by other poetesses in China, hers stand out like a killer among groups of ladies," Liu Nian, editor of the Chinese literary journal Poetry, said about Yu Xiuhua's works.

In "Crossing big China to sleep with you," Yu wrote, "Across China, all is happening: volcanoes are erupting, rivers are running dry. Political prisoners and the displaced were disregarded, elks and red-crowned cranes were shot to the ground. And I, I trespassed a hail of bullets to sleep with you, I pressed nights into a dawn to sleep with you, I gathered all I am to sleep with you."

Tagged as the "poetess with cerebral palsy (a condition characterized by a group of permanent movement problems)" and a seemingly paradoxical "China's Emily Dickinson" in media reports, Yu's work has recently gone viral on WeChat, China's largest standalone messaging app.

And her blog, previously with less than 200 followers, has now climbed to over 5,000 followers, with more than 400,000 hits.

Her fans are not shy of expressing their love of her works.

One left her a message: "Your poem moved me. It's been a long while since I tasted my tears." Another wrote: "Your poem made me realize that the poetry is still alive."

Putting her feelings into words has always worked for Yu, but she does not intend to teach or preach.

"When I'm not happy, I write it down, and the words are basically an expression of my mood at that particular moment. I do not write in order to show something," says Yu in an interview with People's Daily Online.

"I never think of what I should write about in poems or how to write them. When I'm worried about my life, I don't have the luxury to care about where my country is going, nor where human beings are heading. If I happen to be writing about these matters, it is because they touched me, warmed me or really made me sad or worried," said Yu.