Empty Chairs: Selected Poems

By: Xia Liu

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Synopsis: The first publication of the poetry of Liu Xia, wife of the imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize recipient Liu XiaoboI didn't have a chanceto say a word before you becamea character in the news,everyone looking up to youas I was worn downat the edge of the crowdjust smokingand watching the sky.A new myth, maybe, was formingthere, but the sun was so brightI couldn't see it. —from "June 2nd, 1989 (for Xiaobo)"Empty Chairs presents the poetry of Liu Xia for the first time freely in English translation. Selected from thirty years of her work, and including some of her haunting photography, this book creates a portrait of a life lived under duress, a voice in danger of being silenced, and a spirit that is shaken but so far indomitable. Liu Xia's poems are potent, acute moments of inquiry that peel back to expose the fraught complexity of an interior world. They are felt and insightful, colored through with political constraints even as they seep beyond those constraints and toward love.