There Is Still Singing in the Afterlife

Book excerpt: An elegiac illumination of personal and political histories misremembered and censored, There Is Still Singing In The Afterlife is animated by the intimate language of spirits-living, loved, and gone-singing to us from the hereafter. A poet of deep noticing, JinJin Xu interrogates the nature of witness and memory, taking seriously the consequence of confession in a foreign land, in a language not her own. Xu grapples with a forbidden language-blending the lyric with confession and erasure to sing the unspeakable, to open our eyes to seek the light. This is a stellar debut from a poet you should watch out for.