Empty Chairs: Selected Poems

I didn't have a chance to say a word before you became a character in the news,

everyone looking up to you as I was worn down at the edge of the crowd just smoking and watching the sky.

A new myth, maybe, was forming there, but the sun was so bright

I couldn't see it.

—from "June 2nd, 1989 (for Xiaobo)"

Empty Chairs presents the poetry of Liu Xia for the first time freely in both English...