The Dog Years of Reeducation: Poems

Jianqing Zheng's startling collection of poems, a reliving of the author's experience as a young scholar relocated to a farm, summons nature as companion. The poet's exile is "a double plow" "plain laughter / flavor / of plain life"; "We remain silent as if / we must accept the fact that / our bodies deserve / bending or transplanting / like rice seedlings." As from the work of the great Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, we absorb history-absorb it the only way we can: as experience. Dazzle of fireflies, leeches glomming to legs in rice paddies. Hard work and rest, lit with hand-rolled smokes. Each night "the moon peeks through / the broken window." And, finally, there is this compelling invitation: "Tell me when you want to smell the scent of new rice, and I will bring you a whole bag of it grown with my muddy hands. It's my sweat of love."--Angela Ball, author of Talking Pillow

What I like best about Zheng's poems is nearly every line has an image: I see what he's saying-verbal movies. He shows, rather than tells. I'm entertained by what he says and by the way he says his what. Unforgettable pictures: "Our husky voices / sandpaper the muggy heat," "Straw hats float like life preservers / in a white sea of cotton," a roommate bubbling snores, and "Light recedes / field to field / into a big tomato / toothed in half by hills."-DC Berry, author of Yes, Cancer French Kisses

What will wake the reader here and keep attention from beginning to end is the series of original and important metaphors that reveal how deeply Jianqing Zheng's memory was cast within the confines of his reeducation. In Zheng's book, we experience the actual human side through the author's keen perceptions, as well as compelling moves in the writing of his poetry.-Theodore Haddin, author of By a Doorway, in the Garden