Empty Chairs: Selected Poems

The first publication of the poetry of Liu Xia, wife of the imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize recipient Liu Xiaobo

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 English translation...