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The Nanjing Massacre: Poems
THE NANJING MASSACRE: POEMS offers us a series of snapshots of human cruelty, courage, and compassion that together compose a frightening yet accurate and unforgettable portrait of a historical nightmare. Like Goya’s prints in DISASTERS OF WAR, or Ian MacMillan’s prose sketches in PROUD MONSTER, Wing Tek Lum’s poems confront readers with fully realized vignettes of brutality, love, and suffering whose effect is cumulative.
The subject is the notorious Japanese occupation of Nanjing, China, in 1937. The poems capture all perspectives of the tragedy—from the weary, casually cruel Japanese soldiers to the uncomprehending child victims, and from the desperate helpless parents and the brutalized comfort women to the bloodless yet vicious bureaucrats of death.
“Too often history is written by those who survive, those who won,” Lum writes. Drawing on published histories, memoirs, photographic collections, and oral histories, he composes testimony after testimony for the silenced—poetic memorials that also provide some measure of revenge against the victors. At key moments, he also broadens the frame of reference, linking the crimes in China to the atrocities committed since then at different times, on different continents. Massacres, Lum suggests, bear a family resemblance—the human family.
But THE NANJING MASSACRE is much more than a chamber of horrors. Lum’s spare and meticulous verse offers up vivid, memorable, and even beautiful images, and many of the poems are mini-narratives, suspenseful and compelling. The result is a gallery of disturbing portraits that nevertheless move us through their artistry and truth.
—Craig Howes
Director, Center for Biographic Research
University of Hawai‘i at Manoa
The subject is the notorious Japanese occupation of Nanjing, China, in 1937. The poems capture all perspectives of the tragedy—from the weary, casually cruel Japanese soldiers to the uncomprehending child victims, and from the desperate helpless parents and the brutalized comfort women to the bloodless yet vicious bureaucrats of death.
“Too often history is written by those who survive, those who won,” Lum writes. Drawing on published histories, memoirs, photographic collections, and oral histories, he composes testimony after testimony for the silenced—poetic memorials that also provide some measure of revenge against the victors. At key moments, he also broadens the frame of reference, linking the crimes in China to the atrocities committed since then at different times, on different continents. Massacres, Lum suggests, bear a family resemblance—the human family.
But THE NANJING MASSACRE is much more than a chamber of horrors. Lum’s spare and meticulous verse offers up vivid, memorable, and even beautiful images, and many of the poems are mini-narratives, suspenseful and compelling. The result is a gallery of disturbing portraits that nevertheless move us through their artistry and truth.
—Craig Howes
Director, Center for Biographic Research
University of Hawai‘i at Manoa
236 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 16, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 19, 2017
BLOOD
splattered on my shirt
this blood must be another's
- I am still alive
I read this book because I was at my friend's house and it was a poetry book. First I though 'oh... well all the wars are the same so what?' However, slowly by slowly, each and every poem occupied my mind. I was literally picture about the different characters from the poems. A lot of blood, maggots, screams, and suffering. While I was reading the book, I had nightmares and all I wish to do was to finish the book as soon as possible because it was killing me.
The first part of the book was about Chinese shoulders who fought back the Japanese troop and the poet showed the true color of the shoulders. The second part is the most painful among 5 parts of the books. Women were systematically raped, tortured, and killed. The rest of the parts were more about people in general.
In every wars, the civilians suffer most. The author said he wrote this book because 'Too often history is written by those who survive, those who won (the pen then works in service to the sword). The victims of war, especially those who did not survive, seldom have their experiences told. No one knows what happen S to them, too often no one cares. (Author's note)'
splattered on my shirt
this blood must be another's
- I am still alive
I read this book because I was at my friend's house and it was a poetry book. First I though 'oh... well all the wars are the same so what?' However, slowly by slowly, each and every poem occupied my mind. I was literally picture about the different characters from the poems. A lot of blood, maggots, screams, and suffering. While I was reading the book, I had nightmares and all I wish to do was to finish the book as soon as possible because it was killing me.
The first part of the book was about Chinese shoulders who fought back the Japanese troop and the poet showed the true color of the shoulders. The second part is the most painful among 5 parts of the books. Women were systematically raped, tortured, and killed. The rest of the parts were more about people in general.
In every wars, the civilians suffer most. The author said he wrote this book because 'Too often history is written by those who survive, those who won (the pen then works in service to the sword). The victims of war, especially those who did not survive, seldom have their experiences told. No one knows what happen S to them, too often no one cares. (Author's note)'
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 16, 2025
Absolutely heartbreaking to read but the diversity of perspectives was so powerful.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews