Poetry Magazine
Missed Time
My notebook has remained blank for months
thanks to the light you shower
around me. I have no use
for my pen, which lies
languorously without grief.
Nothing is better than to live
a storyless life that needs
no writing for meaning—
when I am gone, let others say
they lost a happy man,
though no one can tell how happy I was.
Source: Poetry (July 2000).
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This poem originally appeared in the July 2000 issue of Poetry magazine
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Biography
Ha Jin, born in Liaoning Province, China, grew up during the Cultural Revolution when schools were closed and books were burned. While serving in the army, Jin educated himself and studied English and literature when the schools opened in the 1980s. He came to the United States to earn his doctorate from Brandeis University, and decided to remain in this country after the massacre of students at Tiananmen Square. Jin writes . . .
POET’S REGION China
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