Oh, my God--the poet Ai died.
It was a while, ago, too (March of 2010.)
I found out while searching for her books on Amazon.com, to see if she had managed to publish any more collections. I was sad to see she had passed on. She was only 62.
Ai was a writer I discovered in college. I was first attracted to her work for its dark simplicity--her subject matter ranges from poverty and oppression to identity and relationships. I would say her primary theme is power, and the many ways it can be abused. Subthemes include categorization/labeling, class and its brutal consequences, violence and pain. Cheerful, eh? One irony of Ai's life is that the pen name she chose for herself means 'love' in Japanese.
One of my professors once told me she thought the primary message in Ai's work was a desire that we all suspend judgment. For our society to view every member as an individual, without the trappings of ethnicity, religion, gender, economic status or morals. I think Ai was also addressing other issues, but that idea is definitely present in her writings. Could you view everyone you meet without judgment of any kind? I couldn't.
I consider Ai's writing to be very feminist, or, at minimum, writing which was never interested in validating patriarchy, or elevating one part of society above any other part. Reading Ai is the thing to do when you don't want any flowery obfuscation of reality or its constructs.
Here's the Guardian article on her death:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/mar/25/poet-ai-dies
Here's a poem by Ai that I read a few years back, which sums up my feelings about America and my life in it right now:
"More"
for James Wright
Last night, I dreamed of America.
It was prom night.
She lay down under the spinning globes
at the makeshift bandstand
in her worn-out dress
and too-high heels,
the gardenia
pinned at her waist
was brown and crumbling into itself.
What'[s it worth, she cried,
This land of Pilgrims' pride?
As much as love, I answered. More.
The globes spun.
I never won anything, I said,
I lost time and lovers, years,
but you, purple mountains,
you amber waves of grain, belong to me
as much as I do to you.
She sighed,
the band played,
the skin fell from her bones.
The the room went black
and I woke.
I want my life back,
the days of too much clarity,
the nights smelling of rage,
but it's gone.
If I could shift my body
that is too weak now,
I'd lie face down on this hospital bed,
this icy water called Ohio River.
I'd float past all the sad towns,
past all the dreamers onshore
with their hands out.
I'd hold on. I'd hold,
till the weight,
till the awful heaviness
tore from me,
sank to the bottom and stayed.
Then I'd stand up
like Lazarus
and walk home across the water.
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