ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses poetry by the migrant worker poet Wu Xia. It places close readings within the larger context of the discourse of writing by the lower classes in postsocialist China (diceng xiezuo). My reading of Wu's poetry steers away from the previously discussed features of Chinese migrant worker poetry, such as realistic description of laboring bodies in pain. Instead, I focus on Wu's poetics of attachment that seeks to restore the dignity of the precarious laborer and inquiry into her intriguing poetic imaginary. I argue that Wu Xia's poetry challenges the current discourse of new working classes’ culture through an alliance with the more-than-human universe and her affective renegotiation of the value of factory work.
