Bone Skin Flesh by Yen Ai-lin, first published in Chinese in 1997, now appears in a bilingual edition with its first English translations by Jenn Marie Nunes. A landmark in contemporary Taiwanese poetry, these poems revel in the feminine-its desires, violences, and contradictions-through language that is visceral, imagistic, and unrelenting.Here the body is never just metaphor: truth is spit, the sky a leaking breast, the moon a tongue pressed to skyscrapers. Women recur-mother, lover, crone-mythic and ordinary, tender and grotesque.Infused with punk spirit and kin to the Gurlesque, Yen's work claims the feminine as a site of rebellion, pleasure, and creation. Urgent and intimate, Bone Skin Flesh is poetry that demands not only to be read, but lived with."Ai-lin writes as a poet of humanity's true homeland, free from parochial traditions. Her words affirm human values and open new horizons, making her one of Taiwan's most respected and cherished contemporary voices." - Zheng Chouyu (鄭愁
