Nianxi Chen, born in 1970 at Danfeng, Shannxi Province, began writing poems in 1990. In 1999, he left his hometown and labored as a miner for 16 years across China. In 2015, he couldn’t continue as a miner due to the illness caused by his occupation: black lung disease. In 2016, he was awarded the Laureate Worker Poet Prize. His poetry and life were featured in a 2018 documentary entitled Demolition Work about migrant worker poets in China. Chen's poetry book, Records of Explosion (Taibai Wenyi Press) provides lyrical documentation of the hidden costs behind China's financial boom. Chen's poems have appeared in Poetry Periodical, Qinghai Lake, Chinese Poetry, Shandong Literature, and Wutai Mountain.
The project is part of the subthemes Climate Crisis and Poetry, Literature as a tool for social equality and Global unity and shared futures.
Author
Melisa Cahnmann-Taylor
MELISA CAHNMANN-TAYLOR, Meigs Professor of Language and Literacy Education at the University of Georgia, is the co-editor and author of several chapters in The Creative Ethnographer's Notebook (2024), the poetry book, Imperfect Tense (2016) and five other books on the arts of language and education. Recipient of six NEA Big Read Grants, a 2023 NEA Distinguished Fellowship, Hambidge Residency Award, and the Beckman award for Professors Who Inspire, she was appointed in 2020 as Fulbright Scholar Ambassador. Her poems, translations, and essays have appeared in Georgia Review, Lilith, American Poetry Review, Poet Lore, Barrow Street, Mom Egg, Plume, Tupelo, Rattle, Hawaii Pacific Review and elsewhere.
Author
Kuo Zhang
KUO ZHANG is an Assistant Professor in Education at Siena College and received her PhD in TESOL & World Language Education at the University of Georgia. Her poem, “One Child Policy” was awarded second place in the 2012 Society for Humanistic Anthropology (SHA) Poetry Competition held by the American Anthropological Association. Her poems have appeared inThe Roadrunner Review, Lily Poetry Review, Bone Bouquet, K’in, DoveTales, North Dakota Quarterly, Literary Mama, Mom Egg Review, Adanna Literary Journal, Raising Mothers, MUTHA Magazine, Journal of Language and Literacy Education, andAnthropology and Humanism.
Author
Nianxi Chen
Nianxi Chen, born in 1970 at Danfeng, Shannxi Province, began writing poems in 1990. In 1999, he left his hometown and labored as a miner for 16 years across China. In 2015, he couldn’t continue as a miner due to the illness caused by his occupation: black lung disease. In 2016, he was awarded the Laureate Worker Poet Prize. His poetry and life were featured in a 2018 documentary entitled Demolition Work about migrant worker poets in China. Chen's poetry book, Records of Explosion (Taibai Wenyi Press) provides lyrical documentation of the hidden costs behind China's financial boom. Chen's poems have appeared in Poetry Periodical, Qinghai Lake, Chinese Poetry, Shandong Literature, and Wutai Mountain.
