Asian Orphans by Xiao Yin – translated by Mimi Chang


When a potato falls
the muddy earth accepts it.
When a bunch of potatoes fall
the muddy earth takes them all.
In the distance, ducks quack
in the pond, debating.
They would never understand
the hostility of those potatoes 
toward the earth 
while being sheltered  
by the earth. 

Xiao Yin is a poet and novelist from Xichang, Sichuan province of China. She founded the first women’s poetry journal in China in 1988, Women’s Poetry Paper.  She graduated from the writers program at Beijing University in 1995 and then moved to Maoming, Guangdong province in the south. She has published several volumes of poetry, essays and novels and is currently the chairperson of Maoming Writers’ Association.