'Zhai Yongming (b. 1955) was born in Chengdu. She was sent to the countryside to work as a peasant for two years during the Cultural Revolution, but afterwards graduated in laser technology in 1981, and in the same year began publishing poetry. Her two cycles of poems Woman (1984) and Jing’an Village (1985) stamped her credentials as one of the most significant poets of the 1980s. She became a role model for aspiring women poets who provided a powerful and distinctive voice in the world of Chinese poetry that had previously been dominated by male poets. She travelled to the United States in 1990, and returned in 1992 to Chengdu where she enjoys a celebrity presence as an installation artist and the owner of a literary and art salon called White Nights. Her other collections of poetry include Above All the Roses (1989), Collected Poems of Zhai Yongming (1994), as well as the English title, The Changing Room: Selected Poetry of Zhai Yongming (2012).' (Vagabond Press Bio)
