Annie Christain

"When I lived in China four years ago, I heard the song “One Night in Beijing” by SHIN in a taxi. I knew the song was about lost love or wild nights due to the feeling from the music. During my residency, I looked up the English translation and was intrigued by the lines: “People say in the abyss of flowers, there is an old sweetheart sewing the embroidered shoes, the kind old woman is still waiting for the departed beloved man.” The premise of my poem is the singer actually stumbles upon this old woman who turns out to be demonic. Some of the images were inspired by the strange ways Dragon Ball Z was censored for an American audience (no nudity, no death, no extreme violence).

The speaker has no idea what is real, what is illusion, or what is being edited out by a hidden hand." (Annie Christain)