207th Bone

207th Bone is a collection of poetry about life in the city in modern China, about nature, sometimes very sensual and extraordinary, sometimes everyday love and death.

“Everyone who comes to this world comes with desires. We eat, sleep, fall in love… These are all natural impulses. And what is poetry? I think it is also a kind of desire. In their subconsciousness, every individual desires to be understood and recognized by others. This is probably where my poems were born.”

The poems are about finding meaning among millions of people and finding love in loneliness. Zhou Li is a doctor as well as a poet, and the poems in his debut collection of poetry are short and simple, but have a lot to say. The book is divided into three years and has re-occurring themes of seasons, China, sexual desire, and the struggle of empathy from working in the medical field. The book was translated by Xi Nan.