Xiaoqiong Zheng

Zheng Xiaoqiong (郑小琼) is a Chinese poet and writer often associated with the migrant-worker or battler poetry movement (dagong shige / 打工诗歌). Her work is notable within the movement for its focus on women's experiences of industrial life, for references to classical Chinese literature, and for drawing links between local forms of exploitation and the effects of globalisation. She has been described as one of the most significant living Chinese poets, and as the 'face' of the migrant worker poetry movement.

Life

Born in rural Sichuan, Zheng worked in a local hospital before moving to Dongguan City in 2001 in search of work. She worked first in a die mould factory, then a toy factory, a magnetic tape factory, and as a hole-punch operator in a hardware factory for five years. a common accident among factory workers in the region. In total, Zheng worked as a migrant labourer for eight years, before obtaining a position as a professional editor in 2009 at the Guangzhou literary journal Art Works,

Poetry

Much of Zheng's poetry draws from her decade of experience as a factory worker. Her poems use a great deal of sensory detail, and often explore depersonalisation, and the blending of herself with industrial machinery. As she describes it: "I have always wanted my poetry to be filled with the taste of iron, solid, sharp."

Her poetry and prose have appeared in a broad range of Chinese-language publications, including Shikan (a Beijing-based national monthly poetry journal), Shanhua, and People's Literature (Renmin Wenxue). Her poetry collections include Rose Manor, Huangma Mountains, Pedestrian Bridge, and Poems Falling on Machines

Other writing

In addition to poetry, Zheng's work includes fiction, autobiographical essays and oral history. The latter includes Woman Worker, a project of interviews with female migrant workers conducted over the course of 10 years (2006–2015).

This was used by Zheng as the basis of her poetry collection, poetry collection based on the interviews titled Stories of Women Workers (女工记), which was published by the Guangzhou-based publisher Huacheng in 2012. This collection contains 100 poems, each one entitled with a worker's name, according to the idea that "each person's name signifies their dignity.". A selection of the interviews themselves were published in English in 2025 by the magazine Equator, translated by Eleanor Goodman.