People's Square

Leaf 67 – Looking Back

 

When I first went to China in 2005, I stayed in the Beijing Hotel – the place from where the famous photograph of Tank Man was taken on the 4th June 1989. My room similarly overlooked Chang’an Avenue. I wrote the following poem after visiting Tiananmen Square. Overhearing an English-speaking Chinese tour guide leading his party of tourists towards the large monument to the People’s Heroes there, I thought there was something odd about what he said to them. It didn’t strike me until later: People’s Square is in Shanghai.

 

 

His arms

set at right angles,

and everything that’s

in between,

is People’s Square.

 

 

 

Photographs by Tim Chamberlain