Color and light and life invigorate Xiao Yue Shan’s debut chapbook—or, in her own words: “a thrill of poppy and chrysanthemum”. How Often I Have Chosen Love explores the rediscovery of her nuanced and complex family, her nuanced and complex sense of home, the nuanced and complex history of China. From the flag in Tiananmen Square to the apartments of San Francisco, Shan complicates our sense of home and history by filling every reflection and every moment with the bursting blue light of Hong Kong, the delicate sprawl of blooming vegetation—envisioning a creation myth that seeks to have “no tale of falling.” In the voice of a modern woman of two nations, Shan’s work finds her deepest authenticity. Her rich palette of color, of flower and nation and jewel, is an achievement only Shan’s unique perspective could conceive. Xiao Yue Shan is an emerging poet whose words and heart beat with the exact rhythm of our times.

“Dazzling with sensory details and vibrant landscapes, these poems deepen our understanding of home in their poignant examinations of country, gender, childhood, and love. Xiao Yue Shan achieves both a delicate and fierce offering of lyricism that often leaves the reader breathless by the end of the poem. I can’t wait to read more from this poet on the rise and on the verge of something greater that is all her own.”

— Mai Der Vang