The Persistence of Life
Two poems by Jianqing Zheng
The Persistence of Life —Eudora Welty’s "Day’s End" Autumn dusk. An old woman wobbles down the sidewalk. She wears a bucket hat, a dress, and an unbuttoned sweater, all in faded black. Her floral apron in faded white has a few rips. Is she a cook, a housemaid, a washwoman, or one like Phoenix Jackson plodding on the worn path into twilight? Her cotton shoes are worn as the faded brick pavers underfoot, but her eyes are sparkling under the hat. She drags on, and the sinking sun slides off her back. howling wind the leaning chapel remains standing
A Moment Apart —Eudora Welty’s "Political Speech" As the speaker stands high on the platform addressing the audience gathering in twos and threes, his stump speech that stirs up rounds of applause from excited people sounds more like a lullaby rocking a little girl lying in the shade to shuteye. Her mom sitting beside her chats with a woman, their voices a painted lady fluttering above the girl.
Jianqing Zheng is the author of The Dog Years of Reeducation (Madville Publishing, 2023), A Way of Looking (Silverfish Review Press, 2021), Enforced Rustication in the Chinese Cultural Revolution (Texas Review Press, 2019), Delta Sun (Red Moon Press 2018), and The Landscape of Mind (Slapering Hol Press, 2002). His edited books include Conversations with Dana Gioia, African American Haiku, The Other World of Richard Wright, and Sonia Sanchez’s Poetic Spirit through Haiku. He is a professor of English at Mississippi Valley State University where he edits Valley Voices: A Literary Review. Zheng’s newest chapbook Just Looking: Haiku Sequences about the Mississippi Delta is available for download via Open: Journal of Arts and Literature.
Mississippi Transplant: Jianqing "John" Zheng
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What does it mean to call Mississippi home? Why do people choose to leave or live in this weird, wonderful, and sometimes infuriating place? Today we hear from the professor, photographer, and poet John Zheng. Where are you from? I’m originally from China, and geographically from a metropolitan river city in Central China …