Tan Lixin (b. 1993)

1. BIOGRAPHY

2. CRITICAL INTRODUCTION

3. SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

4. SELECTED POEMS

• Lessons for a Birthday

• Funeral Song

• Where Winter Does Not Go

• On The First Day Of The Wake

5. SELECTED VIDEOS

6. TRACK CHANGES: “KEEPING SKELETONS, TO A FRIEND”

SELECTED POEMS

Where Winter Does Not Go

When the bougainvillea starts to shed,bleeding
itself to death all over the country, we expect winter
to arrive, sweeping away the colours, cloaking
them if it were hasty,

and even then there should be time to grieve
for some part of ourselves that has died, to lay
our mistakes to rest so we can start again.
But winter does not come here;

no need to name the shades of yellow seeping
through the leaves, no borders between my part
of this world and yours where snow might fall early,
no room to imagine a sadness compatible

with a bitter cold, no place to live except in little
concrete bubbles. So when the bougainvillea
starts to shed, we pretend to know what it means,
writing poems about change, trying not to dwindle

by burying our heads in dreams that have past,
rising from sleep to see that all else remains.

by Tan Lixin
first published in Willows Wept Review (Issue 22: Fall 2021)

SELECTED POEMS: “On The First Day Of The Wake” >