Running Away

Vivid, honest, and boldly resilient, Ha Jin’s latest poetry collection, Running Away, adopts a chorus of narrative voices to tell stories of desperate migration. Poems appear as interviews and confessions, and as a catalogue of departures—journeys that feel “like coming back from death.” These poems survive. Often following the path of undocumented Chinese migrants trekking to the United States by way of South America, speakers navigate dangers and visceral fears, authoritarian governments and hope. They are pulled forward by the future and a desire for liberty in a new country—for “the land destined to become their home.” As poems shift in language and geography, as they cross borders and trek the Rio Grande, as they jump ship and flee countries, Ha Jin unambiguously celebrates departure and praises freedom. Running Away reaches for a future where every door is open to us.