Poetry. Asian American Studies. Translated by Keith Waldrop, with Wang Ping, Iona Crook, Hil Anderson and Janet Tan. Permeated with the loneliness of exile, these sensual lyric poems straddle the gap between Chinese and American sensibilities, politics, and culture. Aptly, the speaker is fascinated with bridges: between spirit and flesh, good and evil, past and present, between one human being and another, and finally with that bridge we may not refuse between birth and death. For this poet, writing poetry is not just a way of life, but the way to live, making art from "ordinary days." The poems contain both autobiography and a kind of universal biography. In a profound way, they weep, and sing, for us all.