Xu Lizhi (poet)
Xu Lizhi | |
---|---|
Born | 18 July 1990 Jieyang |
Died | 30 September 2014 (aged 24) Shenzhen |
Occupation | Poet, assembly line worker |
Employer | |
Style | proletarian poetry |
Xu Lizhi (Chinese: 许立志, 1990 – 30 September 2014) was a Chinese poet and factory worker. Xu worked for Foxconn and attracted media attention after his suicide, after which his friends published his collection of poems.[1][2][3]
His poetry is featured in Chuang 1 ("Dead Generations"), a collection of essays published by the AK Press and authored by Chinese Communists who have become disillusioned in or disappointed with the results produced by the Chinese Communist Party.
Famous Works[]
I Swallowed a Moon Made of Iron[4] (我咽下一枚铁做的月亮)
I swallowed a moon made of iron / They call it Screw
I swallowed the industrial effluent, orders of unemployment / The youths lower than machines have untimely died young
I swallowed the toil, swallowed the displacement, / Swallowed the overpasses, swallowed the life full of limescale
I can't swallow any more / All I’ve swallowed down are surging out of my throat,
Spreading out across the territory of my country and becoming a / Poem of shame
(19 December 2013)
References and notes[]
- ^ "The poetry and brief life of a Foxconn worker: Xu Lizhi (1990–2014)". libcom.org. 29 October 2014.
- ^ "The haunting poetry of a Chinese factory worker who committed suicide". The Washington Post. 12 November 2014.
- ^ "Read The Heartbreaking Poems of a Man Who Committed Suicide After Working in a Foxconn Factory". Business Insider. 6 November 2014.
- ^ "I Swallowed a Moon Made of Iron | by Xu Lizhi". 知乎专栏 (in Chinese). Retrieved 14 November 2018.
See also[]
- 1990 births
- 2014 deaths
- People's Republic of China poets
- Poets from Guangdong
- Suicides in the People's Republic of China
- Writers from Jieyang
- Foxconn
- 2014 suicides
- Chinese writer stubs