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How Often I Have Chosen Love

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Color and light and life invigorate Xiao Yue Shan’s de- but chapbook—or, in her own words: “a thrill of poppy and chrysanthemum”. How Often I Have Chosen Love explores the rediscovery of her nuanced and complex family, her nuanced and complex sense of home, the nuanced and complex history of China. From the flag in Tiananmen Square to the apartments of San Francisco, Shan complicates our sense of home and history by filling every reflection and every moment with the bursting blue light of Hong Kong, the delicate sprawl of blooming vegetation—envisioning a creation myth that seeks to have “no tale of falling.” In the voice of a modern woman of two nations, Shan’s work finds her deepest authenticity. Her rich palette of color, of flower and nation and jewel, is an achievement only Shan’s unique perspective could conceive. Xiao Yue Shan is an emerging poet whose words and heart beat with the exact rhythm of our times.

34 pages, ebook

First published March 11, 2019

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Xiao Yue Shan

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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
Profile Image for Elizabeth.
107 reviews48 followers
March 28, 2019
in china they say a man is like a mountain / and a woman is like a river. it is because we spread /to fill empty spaces. because we allow for / greenness. it is because they drink / freely from us."


Shelly Shan has written a moving, lyrical collection of poetry that transports the reader around the world with her: to Harbin, to San Francisco, to Tokyo. She seeks to answer the questions: What does it means to be an emigrant? A human? A woman? And how do the history and politics of our nations shape who we are able to be?
Profile Image for Tilly.
133 reviews20 followers
July 30, 2025
a simply beautiful collection of poems that are so far from simple, so intricate & poignant & melodious <3
129 reviews
April 6, 2019
Beautiful! These poems stay with you.
Profile Image for Mikaylynn.
58 reviews1 follower
April 27, 2019
I really enjoy this quick chapbook read. I found it via Frontier Poetry. I can appreciate the poetry and the length of the poems. We see lots of poets throwing a couple of words on a page but this was actually a nice length, and beautiful stories.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews

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