About | 铁钉 An Iron Nail

An Iron Nail 铁钉 explores the poetry of Zheng Xiaoqiong 郑小琼 (b. 1980), a former migrant worker who left Sichuan Province to enter the factories in Guangdong Province. At age twenty-one, she began to write about her experiences. Her poems offer a window into the lives of and conditions faced by factory workers.

When I visited Xiaoqiong in May 2018, she took me to Dongguan to listen to the sounds of the factories first hand. Every factory sounds unique: a plastic factory, a hardware factory, an electronics factory…

This work is dedicated to Zhang Yongyun and to Zheng Xiaoqiong.

Rachel C. Walker, April 2019, Beijing.

An Iron Nail 　　

In the furnace, she has been cast into an iron nail
Placed on the wall, her second half of life is somewhat
Lonely and cold; her master hangs on her body
Plastic bags that hold vegetables, onions, eggs and
Fatty pieces of meat; she approaches life in silence
Time is rusting on her body, her lustrous youth
Turning withered yellow, dark red; she does not speak, even though
Memories constantly bring her back into her once fiery past
She could have become a machine in operation, but being inattentive
She’s turned into a small iron nail, like an invisible person
Standing on the wall, witnessing mediocre, trivial lives, yet
Her inner life being truly banal, her outlook on life is not
Completely hopeless. On the contrary, she loves the ordinariness
Of everyday living, the endless quarrels and conversations of
Her master; she’s resigned to the daily tranquility, half of her body
Sunk in the wall, time is accumulating gradually as
Rust is swallowing her little by little; every day, she endures
Taunting from shiny iron tools, the great God has molded her
Into an iron nail; her life is already a failure
Now fixed on the wall, she is doubly unfortunate
But she never complains or resents, she has forgivingly accepted
Her fate; for she knows being alive is more courageous and peaceful than dead. 　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Zheng Xiaoqiong, Translated by Zhou Xiaojing

铁钉

在炉中，她把自己熔铸成一颗铁钉
在墙上安置好它有些孤独与冷清的
下半生，主人在她的身上悬挂着
塑料袋，袋中的青菜，香葱，鸡蛋
油腻的肉块，她在缄默中接近生活
时光在她的身上生锈，光泽的年华
变成枯黄，暗红，她不说话，即使
回忆不断把她带进曾经火热的往昔
本来可成为运转的机台，却不留心
变成了一枚小小的铁钉，像隐形人
站在墙上，目睹生活的庸常，但是
内心真正的庸常，对于生活，它还
不那么绝望，相反，热爱着生活的
平淡，主人间喋喋不休的争吵或者
谈话，她已甘于日常的平静，半截
陷身于墙间，时间一点一点积蓄着
锈一点一点吞噬着，每天，还接受
锃亮的铁器嘲笑，伟大的上苍把它
铸造成一枚铁钉，人生已是失败
现在她被固定墙上，这更是不幸
但她从不怨恨，她满怀宽恕地接受
命运，她知道生比死更勇敢而平静

郑小琼诗

Year of Composition

2018
2021, version with electronics

Premiere

May 2019
Cincinnati Ohio

First Performers

Zhang Yongyun, percussion/voice
Zheng Xinyi, percussion