Translation from NER 36.2. 

I want to go to Korea
I want to go to the Square
to the floral-printed North Korea

a holiday with the Koreans:
flowers in torrential waves
old people and children arranged into squares
young smiles frozen into walls
women with gazes like torches
leader standing before his portrait
all walk at the same pace

—translated from the Chinese by Fiona Sze-Lorrain

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Yin Lichuan, poet, fiction writer, film director, and scriptwriter, rose to literary notoriety as a founder and the most prominent member of the “Lower Body” movement, based in Beijing during the early 2000s. Born in 1973 in Chongqing, Sichuan Province, she studied French at Beijing University and earned a graduate degree in filmmaking in Paris at École supérieure libre d’études cinématographiques (ESEC). Her publications include a collection of selected writings, Feel a Bit More Comfort (2001); a novel, Bitch (2002); and three volumes of poetry, Karma (2006), Wet Paint (2007), and The Doors (2015). A volume of selected poems, Karma, translated by Fiona Sze-Lorrain, is forthcoming from Zephyr Press. Since 2006, Yin has devoted herself to filmmaking; her debut feature, The Park, was released in 2007, and Knitting premiered at the Cannes Festival in 2008. She lives in Beijing.

Fiona Sze-Lorrain is the author of two poetry collections, My Funeral Gondola (El Leon Literary Arts, 2013) and Water the Moon (Marick Press, 2010), and several translations of contemporary Chinese, French, and American poets. She lives in France and works as a zheng harpist and editor.