Farmer breathes life into poems(2)

A photo shows works by Chinese farmer Yu Xiuhua. [Photo/Xinhua]

Compared to her words that flow elegantly with no difficulty, Yu's physical posture is nothing but smooth.

Yu shakes her head when she talks, and her speech stutters sometimes. The habit also shows in her walk, as she stumbles to move across the room. When she types, she presses the keyboard arduously solely with her left index finger.

"You can talk to her about her physical condition, her husband and child, her attitude on love, and domestic violence she's suffered in her past," Liu says.

"There's no barrier for you to reach down to her heart, you can easily walk in."

Journalists have flooded to interview her since she gained her fame, but some of her newly gained fans worry that too much media attention will distract her from her creation.

"If you keep silent, even the howling sea will calm down," Yu said in resposne.

When she was told she was compared to the famous American poet Emily Dickinson, she said she didn't know who that was.

In fact, the only thing the two have in common is probably their love of reading.

Often she will pull a chair in the yard to read in the daylight, or sit in her simply equipped bedroom by a plain wooden table, with an energy efficient bulb lighting from the ceiling.

She married a man 12 years her senior, and describes what has become an unhappy marriage as "Youth rendered to an engagement of sin."

Her son, a freshman at the University in Wuhan, says his mother has a peaceful heart, yet she always prefers to show her tough side.

Showing weakness to the world has never been on Yu's list.

In her words, "To make heard my physical disability is redundant as the teeth say it aches."