By Shui Qingqian

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Migrant Worker Poets Recite Works in Hangzhou

By Shui Qingqian

A group of migrant worker poets came into spotlight at Hangzhou Library on December 22, 2015. Seventeen poems were read by members of Writers Commune, City Citizens’ Theater Society, and Zhejiang Language Art Society, all non-government art-related organizations based in Hangzhou.

Seventeen poems were selected from 65 that won the prizes at a competition for poetry of migrant workers in Hangzhou. The competition was first announced in Hangzhou Daily. The winners of the competition were announced in September 2015. Nearly 1,000 workers sent in their poems. Many had never written a single poem before they learned about the competition.

Guo Xiangqin was one of the worker poets who started his poemwriting seriously after he learned about the competition. The 57-year-old man began to work as a bus driver in Hangzhou in 2013. He served in the military after his graduation from high school and worked in a state-owned business in Anhui, his home province. After he was 40, he decided to have a new life and resigned from the job. He worked in various cities across Zhejiang. He did a number of jobs and even tried to start his own business. It was not until 2013 when he became a bus driver that his life became relatively stable. After reading about the competition in Hangzhou Daily, he became exited. He wrote more than ten poems on paper. Then he asked a young man living next door to input the poems into computer and sent them in one batch to the organizer. His Love for West Lake was awarded the first prize.

打工詩人與詩歌朗誦者的互動Worker poets and poem readers interact at the reading.

Guo Xiangqin was typical of the nearly 1,000 competitors, whose age ranged from 18 to 70 and whose occupations spanned the social spectrum. Among these poets were barbers, cleaners, teachers, construction workers, teachers, white-collar workers.

Some contenders had been members of writers associations in their own home cities or provinces. And some had been writing poems for a long while. Some had even published books. But they were qualified to take part in the competition as they were migrant workers in Hangzhou at that time.

Zheng Jianwei is now a businessman in Hangzhou. He has been a member of Chongqing City Writers Association for years. He worked in Hangzhou as a construction worker after he failed to pass the national college entrance examination. The poem he sent in was written one evening early in 2015 when he was talking a stroll and passing a construction site. A group of migrant workers had called it a day and were leaving a construction site. They looked exhausted and dusty. The sight brought back Zheng’s memory of working as a construction worker years before. He went home and wrote a poem about the migrant construction workers. It was recited at the poem reading gathering. A prolific poet, he has published quite a few poems in magazines at provincial and national levels.

The poems recited at the poem reading event reflected a wide spectrum of emotions, sensitivities, and interesting worldviews. Some poems were about the home and people left behind, some were about the hard work and hard living at the social bottom, some were about hope and dignity, and some were about the beauty of Hangzhou, a city many migrant workers now call their new home.