Impossible Paradise

Selected Poems

A Selected Poems introducing this award-winning Taiwanese poet in English for the first time. Chen's ardent vision spans our world, ancient and present, resonant to the core, blending Eastern and Western sensibilities in a brilliant tapestry.

The Poetry Book Society Translation Choice Spring 2026

‘May the stone steps and the deep-sleeping door summon
the camellia’s impossible paradise
and your face the impossible key
May the window shudder
May the notes be blue
and the candleflame shake unequivocally’
(from ‘May the Rain’)

One of Taiwan’s most celebrated poets, Chen Yuhong draws on both Western and Asian literary traditions, inflected by her work as a translator of contemporary English-language women poets (Glück, Oswald, Duffy). This selection makes her art widely available in English for the first time.

Her award-winning translators, George O’Connell and Diana Shi, carry across the richly metaphorical lexicon of her poems and their uncanny inhabitation of places both real and imagined, conjuring mood, angles of thought or light, animal presence, and the tides of the seasons.

In a world where much that seemed united has frayed, Chen Yuhong’s finely balanced poems bring us news of other imagined worlds, and acknowledge the unexpected, its capacity to terrify or astonish.

Contributor: George O’Connell (Translated by), Diana Shi (Translated by)

Translator: George O’Connell, Diana Shi

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