Enforced Rustication

Jianqing Zheng is author of The Landscape of Mind (Slapering Hol Press) and editor of African American Haiku: Cultural Visions (University Press of Mississippi). His poetry has appeared in Mississippi Review, Poetry East, Spillway, Tar River Poetry, and elsewhere. He lives and writes in the Mississippi Delta.

The poems in this collection reveal a complex narrative of China's Cultural Revolution and its Sent-Down-Youth. While each poem stands alone - graced with stunning descriptions (""At fish-belly dawn""), images (""hands fluttering / like butterflies on cotton fluffs""), and all too human struggles (""I am tired of being tired; / of being told what to do"") - together they tell of a larger history."" - Rita Costello