Issue 03｜Cao Huishuang

Cao Huishuang is a poet and retired mine worker from Shandong Province, China. For thirty years, amid the noise of machinery, she found time to write between work and household chores. She has filled more than 380 notebooks, amounting to over 3.5 million Chinese characters, with accounts of her struggles, her reading, and her reflections on life.

A member of the Shandong Writers Association, she has published over 300,000 Chinese characters in newspapers and literary journals and won more than 40 awards in writing competitions. Her work has appeared in the poetry anthology Even Alone, One Must Bloom into Spring. She has also been featured on CCTV's 2024 Online Spring Festival Gala and invited to speak at TEDxShanghai. Covered by more than 20 major media outlets, she has gained recognition as a voice of China's industrial workers.

Cao has spoken of finding a kindred spirit in the poetry of Marina Tsvetaeva. She finds poetry in wild grass, old newspapers, and the everyday life of the mine. For her, writing has offered a way through difficult times, bringing a little light into ordinary life.

Ⅰ. Close to the Earth·带泥沾土

Poetry rooted in daily labor. Cao Huishuang writes of gathering leaves for winter fuel and pursuing a dream of writing—the quiet tension between making a living and keeping that dream alive.

搂些落叶好过冬

我家西南边的沟里

栽了好些的树

秋天里会落好些的叶子

我会在空闲的时候

挎个大筐，扛着耙子

去搂些落叶回来

这是农家人不错的软柴

红红黄黄的落叶们很好看

我却不能用诗意的言语

去赞美一下他们

我那时只会“却道天凉好个秋”

写东西也是“为赋新诗强说愁”

哗哗啦啦地把落叶搂回家

对过冬的踏实感又多了些

只是我熟记过的生字和生词

没过几天就忘记了多半

我在满了叶子的筐前怅然若失

我何时才能用写作改变一下命运？

Raking Leaves to See Us Through Winter

In the ditch southwest of our house
many trees grew.
Come autumn,
the leaves fell in heaps.

In my spare hours,
basket on my arm, rake on my shoulder,
I gathered the leaves
and hauled them home—
good kindling for a farm stove.

Red leaves, yellow leaves—
beautiful, though I had no words
poetic enough to praise them.
Back then, all I knew was,
“What a fine autumn—
now the air has turned cool.”

And when I wrote,
I forced myself to speak of sorrow
just to make a new poem.
Rustle upon rustle,
I raked the leaves home,
and winter felt
a little easier to face.

But the new characters and words
I had learned by heart
were half forgotten
within days.
Before my basket
brimming with leaves,
I stood there, at a loss—
when would writing
change my fate?

逆光

我这个矿山里最最普通的女工

没有一直过着随大流的日子

而是逆着随波逐流的光

追逐一个遥遥无期的文学梦想

被周边的人戏谑、调侃和打压

被失败蹉磨，被无助折磨

梦想是活着的最好保护层

我就是想证明一下自己的能力

逆着光，硬生生地去闯文学路

我终于有了一张写作的入场券

文学是不接待精神落魄的人的

我就用倔强维系着那点体面

逆光里，我不是英雄不是王者

逆光里，我是个闷头书写的人

逆光里，我是没有辨识度的女工

Against the Light

I am the most ordinary woman
at this mine.
I have not spent my life
drifting with the crowd.
I went against the current,
against the light,
chasing a literary dream
still far beyond reach.

People mocked me,
needled me,
pressed me down.
Failure ground me down.
Helplessness wore me thin.
A dream is the best armor
a life can wear.

I only wanted to prove
what I could do.
Against the light,
I fought my way
toward a life in literature
until at last
I earned a place
in the world of writing.

Literature does not welcome
those broken in spirit.
I kept that scrap of dignity alive
on sheer stubbornness.

Against the light,
I am no hero, no champion.
Against the light,
I keep my head down
and write.
Against the light,
I am one more faceless woman
at the mine.

Ⅱ. The Mine and Its Wounds·矿山与心伤

The mine has given Cao Huishuang a living, and it has also left its marks. In these poems she writes about its work and its people, about family and hardship, and about the strength that hard years have given her.

父亲的矿山

父亲用一生的茬茬经历

囤积了一座丰富的经验矿山

父亲常以健谈开采出坚韧的矿石

我用聆听的生产流程一级级破碎后

用思索磨选出领悟的铁精粉

用思考浮选出了悟的铜或钴的精粉

用真诚重选出参悟的金精粉

若想有各类金属的品质与市场价值

我须得躬身，分门别类

一个步骤一个步骤的冶炼

My Father’s Mine

Across a lifetime’s many seasons,
my father built up
a rich mine of experience.

Whenever he talked,
he brought up
ore of grit and endurance.

I fed the ore through
the production line of listening
and crushed it
stage after stage;

pondering, I ground and dressed it
into an iron concentrate
of insight;

thinking, I floated out
a copper or cobalt concentrate
of understanding;

with sincerity, I used gravity to separate
a gold concentrate
of hard-won wisdom.

To give these metals
their grade and market worth,
I must bend to the work,
sort one from another,
and smelt them
one step
at a time.

我在矿山里努力地够梦想

站在矿山上，走在矿山间，我的感情是复杂的。在这里，我经历了好，也经历了不好；在这里，我遇见了美，也遇见了不美；在这里，我有可知心谈话的同事，更有互相拆台互相贬损的同事。芜杂的人性，复杂的人际关系，不是矿山独有的，也不是矿山发明创造的。无论如何，矿山是我生活的重心，是我体会的中心。任何生存群体中，都有鹰有雁有鹤有鸽，更有虱子臭虫和跳蚤，就看一个人是向前者看齐，还是与后者为伍了。

细细算下来，我在矿山里撮取到了一股正气。对，是正气，我在这股正气里，无论多难，都在努力地够自己想要的文学梦想。“世事我曾抗争，成败不必在我”，在这句话下，我努力过了，争取过了，也刷过存在感了……

Reaching for a Dream at the Mine

Standing at the mine, walking its grounds, I have mixed feelings. Here I have known both good and bad, encountered beauty and ugliness. I have coworkers I can confide in—and others who tear each other down.

The messiness of human nature and the complications of human relationships are not peculiar to mines. The mine did not invent them. Every community has its eagles, geese, cranes, and doves—and its lice, bedbugs, and fleas. What matters is whether a person keeps moving forward.

When I add it all up, I find that the mine has given me moral strength. Yes, moral strength. However hard things became, that strength kept me reaching for the literary dream I had set my heart on.

“I have fought the battles life gave me; whether I win is not mine to decide.” With that line in mind, I did my best. I fought for my chance. And I made myself seen, too ...

Ⅲ. Becoming Her Own Mountain·活成自己的山

The mine is no longer just where Cao Huishuang works. It has become the ground she writes from, giving her a voice of her own and a sense of purpose.

书本是失意人的工作台

他被容貌丢弃了

他被家世舍弃了

他被学业遗弃了

他被前程甩掉了

他被爱情抛弃了

婚姻在犹犹豫豫中

终于认可了他的身份

他要替家人遮风挡雨

要为家人扛下现实一关关

不知何时，书本收留了他的精神落魄

不必何因，他在书中很乐意袒露情怀

他的日子是穷，他的心一点点富起来

他的处境卑微，他的心态却显要起来

暖着他心的书本，给了他深情

信任他的家人，和他一起补漏洞

书本是失意人的工作台

他服从了命运的安排

他又在其中挣脱了一些挟制与捆绑

他倚着工作台，他活出了一丝光

他抵着工作台，想活出一种命好

Books Are a Workbench for the Disheartened

He was turned down for his looks,
held back by his family background,
failed by his schools,
shut out by his future,
and dumped by love. 
Marriage knocked at his door,
full of doubt, 
but in the end
it stayed.

He had to shelter his family
from wind and rain,
to carry them through
one hardship after another.

Somewhere along the way,
books took in
his defeated spirit.

Needing no reason,
he gladly opened his heart
in their pages.

His days were poor,
but little by little
his heart grew rich.

His place in life was humble,
but he began
to hold his head higher.

The books that warmed his heart
gave him tenderness.

His family believed in him
and worked beside him
to patch the holes
in their lives.

Books are a workbench
for the disheartened.

He accepted
what fate had given him,
yet within it
he broke free
of some of its restraints.

Leaning on his workbench,
he lived his way
into a little light.

Bracing himself
against his workbench,
he hoped to live his way
into a better fate.

矿山的这片热土

矿山的这片热土

给我提供厚重的思想

递给我情感的依托

年复一年的矿山生活

用丰富鲜活的日常素材

让我有勇气去闯一闯文学的路

出产的矿石，是矿山最真诚的状态

写出的作品，是我呈现的爱和希望

认真实干，是矿山秉持的信念

奋笔创作，是我逐梦的初心

这片热土上有独特的生存方式

我用别样的文学叙事和笔触

兑上诚意和语感去书写矿山

成为我闯荡文学世界的精神底气

矿山，是我书写的心灵依仗

作品，是我在矿山里的修行

This Mine, This Ground I Love

This mine,
this ground I love,
gives my thought weight
and my feelings
ground to stand on.

Year after year,
life at the mine
offers the rich, living matter
of every day
and the courage to try
a life in literature.

The ore it yields is the mine
at its most honest.
What I write
makes visible
my love and hope.

Hard, honest work
is the creed
the mine holds to.

To write with all I have
was my first resolve
when I set out after that dream.

This ground has its own ways
of staying alive.

In a voice and style of my own,
I write about the mine,
mixing honesty
with an ear for language.

This gives me the confidence
to venture into literature.

The mine is the ground
my writing rests on.

My work is the discipline
I practice here.