Poetry at Sangam
Poetry at Sangam showcases poetry in English and translations as well as essays on poetics and news of new releases.
Shu Ting was born in Fujian province. During the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), like the majority of youth, she was sent to the countryside to work with farmers for three years until 1973. She then worked at a cement factory, a textile mill, and a lightbulb factory. However she began to write poems in 1969. ‘To the Oak Tree’, her first published poem in 1979, won her immediate recognition. This love poem depicts a woman’s love for a man highlighting the gender differences of femininity and masculinity yet asserting independence and equality. Shu Ting is a representative of “Misty Poetry”. According to Gu Cheng (1956-1993), “Misty Poetry was born of the Cultural Revolution, born out of the void after the catastrophe. It appeared like another explosion of the chaos, experiencing the age of innocence of the human race within the blink of an eye. Almost all of the authors of Misty Poetry once told about such innocent expectations and pains as seen from a child’s perspective.” The simplicity, femininity, and purity of Shu Ting’s poems touched and softened people’s hearts hardened by the Revolution, and filled the void with tenderness and humanity in the post-revolution era.
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