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MN poetry: Wang Ping's "Syntax"

Posted at 4:34 PM on May 3, 2011 by Marianne Combs
Filed under: Minnesota Poets, Poetry

Wang Ping was born in Shanghai and grew up on a small island in the China Sea. After three years of field work on a rural commune, she attended Beijing University. In 1985, she left the People's Republic of China to study in the United States, and earned her Ph.D. from New York University. She's the author of numerous collections of short stories and poetry, including "The Last Communist Virgin" and "The Magic Whip." She teaches at Macalester College.

Syntax

She walks to a table
She walk to table

She is walking to a table
She walk to table now

What difference does it make
What difference it make

In Nature, no completeness
No sentence really complete thought

Language, like woman
Look best when free, undressed

- "Syntax," by Wang Ping, as it appears in her poetry collection Of Flesh Spirit, published by Coffee House Press. Reprinted here with permission from the publisher.