【About the Book】

 

A single word is a blade—how can "Missing" be used to probe a mother’s death, to reach into longing, loss, absence, and the act of searching? Yu-Hsuan Wu asks: “I search for my mother—who is this woman? What has she left within my life? How do I inherit her spirit and dreams? How do I build connection in her absence? How do I hear the echoes of maternal love in silence?” These persistent questions form the pulse of Missing’s verses.

 

In her poetry, Wu writes of her mother’s passing, the body’s decline, and the traces left by caregiving. She weaves into her language her son’s questions and the shadows of family, shaping a poetic landscape of kinship. She does not sanctify her mother, but lays bare her tenderness and resilience, rendering her a presence both tangible and real. It is precisely because of this truthfulness that Missing becomes like a mirror, reflecting the search for selfhood within the frameworks of family, the roles of women, and cross-cultural contexts.

 

Missing is more than a poetry collection—it also gathers photographs of “missing person” notices that Wu has posted in various corners of the world, a poetic ritual spanning cities, languages, and landscapes. Writing is transformed into action; mourning is no longer static, but a generative force. Through the interlacing of memory, landscape, and the everyday, this collection gives continued voice to what has vanished and to emotions that cannot be named.

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【Author’s Note】

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I look into the distance at the Pyrenees Mountains, where the last traces of winter linger in the unmelted snow. In this mountain town in southern France, I have dug into the soil, planting seeds of eggplants, pumpkins, tomatoes, and strawberries. Now I pick up a brush to coat the bare wooden door with a light brown waterproof stain. I climb a three-meter ladder to sweep away century-old cobwebs from the wooden roof, beams, and cracks in the stone walls. Leaning against the stone wall, I brush the dust from my clothes. I take deep breaths.

 

Poetry, to me, is not just the words I write. It is the life that surrounds me—I am touched by soil and seeds, touched by paint and wood, touched by brooms and cobwebs, touched by the tremble of fear when climbing high, touched by the ache and exhaustion of physical labor, touched by the vast sky and open wilderness, touched by freedom...

 

Every element that touches me builds an ecosystem where I can grow steadily. I once believed I had to separate daily life from poetry to protect my poetic mind. Over time, I realized that I am not only nourished by writing poetry, but also by the entire ecosystem that supports it. So, what I strive for is not just writing poetry but maintaining the vitality and balance of my ecosystem, allowing poetry to happen naturally.

 

My ecosystem consists of: living in unpolished wilderness; practicing yoga in the early morning; drinking warm water; quietly reading images and words; picking up a camera and pressing the shutter in moments that move me; becoming a beginner over and over again; stepping into unfamiliar and difficult situations, searching for a way through with empty hands; not judging myself when I feel sad; treating every meeting as if it were the last; engaging in deep conversations; and loving without holding back.

 

The first time I stood on a three-meter-high ladder might also have been the last. So I embraced this one and only time completely. My legs trembled as I stood at the top, stretching out my arms, gripping the highest part of the broom handle, letting the bristles extend my will. When I realized that I was sweeping away the cobwebs entangled in the beams and stone crevices, I understood that this was a form of touch. My movements slowed, afraid of ignoring the textures of wood, stone, and silk threads, as well as their relationship with one another. I carefully felt the difference between the cobwebs clinging to the wooden fibers and those caught on the rough stone surface. How much force and at what angle would allow me to gently lift the cobwebs? As the dust and cobwebs swirled down, how could I close my eyes without disturbing my body or the ladder?

 

Touch is placing my heart on another. I have spent so much time being touched by life; the rest of my time, I touch a poem. Recently, I read a poem by American poet Jorie Graham, Reading to My Father, where she describes putting her time on her father’s body after he passed away: “Put my minutes there, on you, as hands—touch, press, / feel the flying-away, the leaving-sticks-behind under the skin, then even the skin / abandoned now, no otherwise now, even the otherwise gone.” She reopened the book she had read to him the night before and read it aloud. She touched his pillow, the silent medical machines beside his bed.

 

I never stopped reading or writing poetry because the world never stopped touching me, and death never withdrew its hand. Five years ago, when I cared for my mother in her final stage of cancer, my time and will were devoted to her deteriorating body and the despair brought by her illness. I listened to every breath she took, bore witness to her fading life. Powerlessness touched me. To save myself, I set aside 5 minutes and 37 seconds every day for free writing—the only time I could momentarily step away from the thought of “caring for my mother.”

 

This moment of distraction was also my only moment of gathering myself. In those precious 5 minutes and 37 seconds, I collected fragments of life and arranged them into meaning. Or sometimes, I simply recorded everything as it was, allowing the words to form my heart’s reflection. That was enough to give me the strength to keep enduring the touch of death. Poetry, to me, was a lifesaving moment. Without writing, I would have collapsed.

 

After moving to the United States, my writing mentor at the Institute of American Indian Arts asked me: What do you truly want to write? I did not know. So, I asked myself another question: What makes me want to cry? Immediately, I thought of my late mother. I had spent so much time touching a poem, touching life and art, but I had never truly touched my mother. How did she spend her days? What were her dreams and disappointments? What did she leave behind in me? What I truly wanted to write was a missing person notice.

 

Stripping away the mother-daughter relationship, writing from a third-person perspective allowed me to cherish and honor my mother. I printed missing person notices and posted them in every city I traveled through: the deserts of New Mexico, the streets of Brooklyn, the markets of Boston, Frankfurt Airport, a church in Toulouse, the ancient walls of Noyers, the beaches of Cannes, the ritual pools of Istanbul, the squares of Sofia, the pine forests of Montenegro, a youth hostel in Cambridge, a watchtower in Zurich, the graffiti alleys of Berlin, the cemeteries of Paris, a parking lot in New York, the forests of Norway… hoping that someone would see the notice and call me.

 

My life cannot ignore the world’s touch. To embrace my encounters with the world, sometimes I write poetry, sometimes I dance Butoh. The essence of poetry and Butoh is the same—they both dissolve the “self” so that a world in resonance can emerge. Rather than seeking to create, I long to be touched by the unknown, by something greater than myself. And as dust and cobwebs swirl in the air, poetry arrives.

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【Selected Poem】

 

Gaze

 

 

Something close to the sacred

is moving away from me,

away from the spatula in my hand—

the aroma of onions and garlic fading,

drifting farther from me,

away from day after day.

The small window fogs up,

and the man on the opposite roof

moves away from my gaze.

The tiles beneath his feet

turn to mist, lifting him

into the air.

I shattered what had moved away from me,

and after you died,

I gazed upon them again.

I stir the onions and garlic

with the gesture of your hand holding the spatula,

moving through my day

with the peace you once used

to pass through each day.

The man on the roof

returns to the ground,

passing through the foggy window,

seeing me as you.

 

 

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Trivial Matters

 

 

I have a duty to tell you—your mother is dead,

the dead-end of our street has come alive, at four in the morning,

the truck by the riverbank starts its engine. As the northeast monsoon sweeps through,

the sands of the Beinan River sneak through our door cracks and window frames,

covering your photo after death.

 

Just like your silence, piling thicker and thicker.

Today, I washed the dust from the amethyst geode,

purifying the crystal with the Singing Bowl.

Labor, too, purifies.

Barthes says, here, nothing resonates, nothing crystallizes.

 

After our mother’s death, scattered dust delicately

lifts our flesh. I have a duty to tell you,

the drama of it all has started to corrode me,

so my steps take flight, preventing you from becoming ignorant:

A Restaurant has closed down. The lights at Tiehua Village have gone dark.

Eslite Bookstore is gone. Carp Mountain reveals its brown intestines.

The traffic at the roundabout remains chaotic. Your favorite diner,

Signature Dish, has moved to Linhai Road, now renamed Homecoming.

The Taitung theater has turned into a ping-pong hall.

Countless houses pull down their overhead doors, hammering away within.

In hidden, hollow spaces, they nurture dust.

Barthes says, any desire I had before my mother’s death cannot be fulfilled now,

lest it mean her death completed it. Now I wait for a new desire

to take form, one born after her death.

 

I have a duty to tell you—the Asian House rat you set free a decade ago

returned to visit me yesterday. I sat in the garden,

letting the grass you planted drown me. That old rat

came to my feet, showing an expression both ancient and pure,

coming closer and closer—until it realized its mistake.

I was not you. I had disappointed a desire born after your death.

It turned and ran deep into the grass.

 

Watching the hollow path the rat left in the grass, I broke into ill-timed tears,

realizing that “ill-timed” has become the most restful bed I know.

The memory foam I bought with my first paycheck for you,

unable to forget the shape of your body.

 

Not a work, Barthes’ old friend said,

but three hundred and thirty scraps of motherless murmurs, published

as an invasion of Barthes' memory.

 

Not an invasion of Barthes' memory—just that we have no other bed.

 

In despair, waiting for you, there was still that rat.

While I was busy with the most trivial matters,

it shouldered the ancient and pure duty of refusing

to join our mourning, dustier than dust itself.

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