Status Updates From The Magpie at Night: The Co...

‘Birds, flowers, & trees are—coded symbolically & emotionally. The sea swallows—the falling leaves of the ‘wutong’ tree—gesture toward the transience of—living things. But plum blossoms, are a stark example of perseverance—Even the particularities of the life stages of plants might be inset with meaning in Li’s poems. Her oracular voice invites readers to sit—at the table with her & partake in her inner thoughts.’

‘Her writings touch on the full range of human experience—Nothing is forbidden to her pen, not even the emperor’s politics—risky by most writers of her time, & even riskier for a woman writer who would not have had the same social protections as a male writer. Even later in life, when her own circumstances became socially & financially precarious, Li never stopped voicing her—perspective on the world through—writing’