Reading - Wang Ailing

At first glance, Wang Ailing's writing does not always read like poetry. Her language is plain, almost conversational, and rarely relies on rhyme. But just when a poem seems to be describing something ordinary, her imagination takes an unexpected turn.

In Walking in the Dark, she worries that her footsteps might hurt the stairs and make them cry out. The thought is almost childlike, yet it reveals a tenderness that reaches even a staircase.

Her years of growing and selling vegetables shape her imagination. In I Grow Vegetables, helpless against the weather, she wishes she could sell off the rain clouds and haul back fresh air, a playful idea with real frustration behind it.

Her poems also explore the limits of ordinary lives. In Identity, a dandelion has wings but no wind. In No Man's Land, the wish for freedom meets invisible boundaries. In New and Old, she finds warmth and acceptance in what time leaves behind.

Where Cao Huishuang draws metaphors from the mine, Wang gives familiar things feelings of their own. Translating her means keeping her language simple and direct, without smoothing away its occasional awkwardness or the sudden turns of her imagination.