Statues

Ling Yu, born in 1952 in Taipei, is known for her inventive poetry and her active role in the Taiwanese poetry scene. She has published nine collections of poetry to date and has received several major literary awards in Taiwan. In March 2025, she was awarded the American Newman Prize. Annemaria Koekoek, which takes the children’s game as its central image, comes from Ling Yu’s most recent collection, 女 (Daughters), written in response to the illness and passing of her mother. The collection contains poems about illness, but also fragments from her childhood and reflections on life, and on what it means to be a woman, a mother, a daughter. In Chinese, the game is called 木頭人 (“wooden person”), which emphasizes the idea of stillness even more strongly.