I Would Define the Sun

Stephanie Niu is a poet and writer from Marietta, Georgia. She is the author of the chapbooks Survived By: An Atlas of Disappearance (winner of the 2023 Host Publications Chapbook Prize) and She Has Dreamt Again of Water (winner of the 2021 Diode Editions Chapbook Contest). Her work has appeared in The Georgia Review, The Missouri Review, Literary Hub, Copper Nickel, and Ecotone Magazine, among other publications. She is the recipient of a Fulbright scholarship for research on Christmas Island’s labor history, through which she led youth poetry workshops and published the zine Our Island, Our Future. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.

• If Words Cost NothingIAfter EdenThe World’s HeartLearning Money in ReverseInformation Worker at the End of the WorldWhat do coral even get stressed about?HymnMy Mother Says Water Dreams Are AuspiciousI Crossed the Sea BoardwalkIIChristmas IslandGarbage BoogieMidden / AppetiteSonnet of Tropical ExcessKeeping HouseHummingbirdsHilton HeadBy These Things We LiveIIIEndeavourAbecedarian for PinyinStudy in Blue兰While Peering in the MirrorOne Blue SoundMissing You青The Road from the MountainsIVBefore DesireLake LanierThe Ocean in MiniatureLeaving LisbonRecurring Dream of EscapeHe SleepsShe Has Dreamt Again of WaterReturning To The VillageI Met My LonelinessI Drive As My Family SleepsV老家The QuestionThe Magic of Eating GarbageBracing Myself Against Sea Wind Along the Coast You Call HomeMigrationToday IsMotherhood in the Climate CrisisSea SwimCoda大连 / DalianNotesAcknowledgments

"Stephanie Niu would define the sun. With her finger, she would draw a circle around your heart to define inside and outside, and then she would draw that circle bigger. And your heart grows. She would point to the world and say 'World,' and then she would draw an 'X' on your soul and say, 'Here,' to remind you of the best seat from which to view the world. Love and Death are her masters, and she is one of their brightest, most diligent disciples. We are blessed to have these poems."—Li-Young Lee, author of The Invention of the Darling