The Poetry of Zheng Xiaoqiong: A Conversation with Translator Eleanor Goodman

Zheng Xiaoqiong’s poetry documents the visceral realities of China’s industrial workforce, capturing the physical and emotional toll of assembly-line labor. Translator Eleanor Goodman highlights Zheng’s trajectory from a rural migrant worker to a prominent literary figure, noting her deliberate resistance to the reductive "migrant worker poet" label. Zheng’s work transcends sociological categorization by grounding feminist critique in the body, explicitly detailing occupational diseases, health struggles, and the erosion of youth within the global supply chain. By eschewing moralization in favor of acute observation, Zheng reveals the profound social displacement caused by rapid industrialization. Her writing challenges the literary establishment’s tendency to pigeonhole worker-writers, asserting a complex, lyrical voice that documents the human cost of the factory world while navigating the precarious political landscape of contemporary China.