Editorial Illustration for a Poem

  • Oana Maries

1 Mai Here is one of the poems by Xu Lizhi, a Foxconn worker who killed himself when he was 24, in 2014, after trying and failing multiple times to turn around his manual labour fate. (Translation: Elena Chiorean) „I swallowed an iron piece of moonlight” I swallowed an iron piece of moonlight They call it a screw I swallowed this industrial wastewater, layoff letters Crushed under machines, that youth dies early I swallowed the struggle, I swallowed the destitution I swallowed pedestrian skyways, I swallowed a life overtaken by rust I can't swallow anymore. All that I once swallowed is now gushing out of my throat I am paving the land of my ancestors with a poem of disgrace. (Xu Lizhi, 19 December 2013)