All There Is to Lose

Growing up in a Tibetan autonomous town in southwest China, Heung reconstructs the first ten years of his life in a village that now lives only in memory. Written in an acquired language, these poems navigate the complex architecture of loss—from the passing of a beloved grandmother to the permanent estrangement from a shifting homeland.

 

 

Rather than offering comforting nostalgia, Heung’s landscape is sharp and unsparing. Here, mountains and rivers do not merely frame the scenery; they carry the weight of departures, ghosts, and volatile seasons. Celebrated poet Ilya Kaminsky praises the collection as a masterclass in the ancient poetic mode of "breaking bread with the dead," using Language to breathe temporary life back into what has been taken away.