XU Wenwen and Shi Xiaohan meet three members of a collective of migrant workers who have been expressing themselves through poetry and prose - to varying degrees of success.

Wherever Chen Yong'an goes, he carries a plastic bag containing stacks of his recent poetry drafts, though his occupation as a trader does not require that at all.

The trader shuttles among markets, manufacturers and customers' companies day and night, but whenever he gets a break, he reads or revises his verses.

For more than 20 years, the 57-year-old, who was a moneyless rustic surviving in Hangzhou and is now a successful wholesaler, has never given up the habit.

He has published two solo poetry anthologies - "Anthology of Xi Mang" (Xi Mang is his pen name) and "Faraway" - and his poems are also featured in "Grand Canal, My Mother," a compilation of poems and essays written by Hangzhou's migrant workers like Chen.

Shanghai Daily featured a story about the compilation last September. The compilation's poems and writers are those who struggle to survive in strange lands, but are eager to express their joy, loneliness and hardship on paper.

They are members of Zhejiang Province Migrant Workers' Writing and Literature Center, or in an affectionate form, the Poet Family.

It is a non-profit organization based in Hangzhou, helping and training migrant workers who are passionate about literature to write poems and essays, including construction workers, cleaners, ayis and many people in low-paying jobs.

The subjects of their works are mostly about villages back home, life in the city, loneliness and challenges. Despite the hardship, discrimination and poverty they have suffered, they seldom include complaints or pessimism in their words, rather, they conjure hope to life.

It has been about nine months since the "Grand Canal, My Mother" was published. With the book, the Poet Family has become more well-known among migrant workers, and hence the number of members has expanded from 40 to 100-plus, while it boasts five offices around the city.

But has the fate of wordsmiths whose works are featured in the compilation changed? Can these newcomers write good essays and poems? Shanghai Daily again meets some of these migrants and finds out the stories behind their creative expressions.

Poems Help My Business

Chen runs a clothes accessories store at a wholesale market in Hangzhou, and is much richer now. When we visited Chen in his store, the small enterpriser boasted "I just made a 6 million yuan (US$926,061) deal yesterday."

It's hard to picture his life 10 years ago, when he was in such abject poverty that he was unable to even buy a bag of rice.

"Some of my partners like to do business with me due to their affection to my poems," says Chen.

"Once, a customer asked me to supply goods in five days, which was impossible for me as the factory said it needed a week to produce them," Chen says.

"Since the customer's attitude was tough, I had to convince him by telling him my story and giving him a book with my signature," he adds. "Seeing my anthology, he extended the period to 10 days."

"In the factory where I purchase, nearly every worker has my book 'Anthology of Xi Mang,' and they evaluate that my poems are like writing for them," Chen says. "I think that's why my small store can have a long stable partnership with the manufacturer."

His poems, which are about migrants' longing for their hometown, loneliness and the hardship of working in cities, and gratefulness to life, can arouse the sympathy of other migrant workers.

For example, a poem named "Migrant Worker" reads:

"Helplessly, I leave the hometown,

With a terrific effort to dismiss the hometown from mind.

…

Following same accent, migrant workers meet fellow villagers

Whether there are any words from hometown?

How is this year's harvest of hometown?

…

Migrant workers,

Are like flying kites,

Wherever it flies,

The end of the string ties up the hometown."

The majority of his most satisfying pieces were produced from 1999 to 2001 when Chen reached his lowest point in life as he suffered abject poverty and was unemployed.

But that strong, wild inspiration hasn't left him even though he is getting richer and he never stops writing, he said.

Driver's Screenwriting Ambition

Unlike Chen, Guo Xiangqin from Anhui Province hasn't had a change in fate or fortune because of literature. The 48-year-old has suffered poverty for almost all of his life.

He used to be a military driver, then a bus driver and is now a truck driver, but he wishes to be a writer and screenwriter.

Although no one has depicted his scenario yet, Guo believes "he could write a movie script one day" as he discovered an advantage of the job as a bus driver. "I observed people and I heard about people's lives as passengers chat," Guo says.

For instance, he has written a short essay "The View on the Bus" recording a day of his work when he was a bus driver.

"I drive the bus on the street where throngs and cars bustle under tall buildings arranged in rows… When I drive into the stop, people file in, different dialects hit my eardrum, and soon the carriage is compacted…

Passengers on the bus yell: 'Stop pushing, can't you see the bus is swelling?' Those in the bus always expect no more passengers, and want to move right now; while passengers outside the bus door yell: 'One more step, come on! Push!' People outside of the bus always hope there could be a foothold for them in the bus, and yell extremely anxiously; and there are people standing on the platform, who flood through the door and squeeze into the crowd with all their strength…"

Like the above example, his essays and dramas are about commoners, and most of his pieces are realistic or adapted from real life.

Guo is enthusiastic in recording people's life since he developed an interest in literature in his boyhood.

Even though he only finished junior middle school, his articles have been published in newspapers and magazines since the 1980s, thus he was encouraged to keep on.

In 2007, he joined the Migrant Workers' Writing and Literature Center when he was working as a bus driver in Hangzhou, so he could finally receive constructive criticism from professionals.

However, his finances haven't altered at all, he remains suffering poverty and discrimination. But Guo never gives up his dream of being a writer. Currently, he's writing a drama script reflecting the lives of migrant workers.

From Blue Collar to White Collar

After the "Grand Canal, My Mother" was published, Pan Yunhua, one of those poets, won more fans on his blog. And two months ago, he was lured to hop jobs to another advertising company that offered him a higher salary.

It is literature that improves Pan's life. The 34-year-old studied chemistry in technical school, but uncommon among his peers, now works as a copywriter for an advertising company and is a head member of the Poet Family, attributed to his sensibility to literature.

The "Grand Canal, My Mother" features three of his poems and essays, including one also named "Grand Canal, My Mother."

This grass-root wordsmith from Anhui Province previously worked as gardener, electrician and laboratory worker, but his life has changed since 2005 when he started writing articles to express his feelings about life and work on a blog.

As his blog attracted several fans, his name became known by the Poet Family, which recruited him and helped publish his pieces in local newspapers in 2006.

With those newspaper articles, he was soon employed as a copywriter, becoming a white-collar worker typing words on computer.

"I hadn't even touched a computer before," recalls Pan. "My dream, my faith in literature finally changed my life." He therefore wrote a poem about dreams, to motivate himself and other migrant workers who also struggle in cities.

"To have dream in its lifetime

Is the dream of the elegant orchid under the old eaves.

It expects the abrupt cold of March,

which can penetrate the concrete jungle and win it a foothold

At the corner of the city.

So the fragrance that accompanies it all its life,

Could tirelessly tell

The utmost elegance that was born with it."