Yang Chia-hsien is a poet, essayist and literary critic born in Kaohsiung, Taiwan in 1978. Her first poetry collection, The Civilization of Holding One’s Breath (屏息的文明 , 2003), was published shortly after she graduated college. After earning her master’s and Ph.D. degrees in Chinese Literature from National Taiwan University, Yang was appointed writer-in-residence at National Tsing Hua University, where she currently serves as associate professor. Yang is one of the most iconic Taiwanese poets of the internet age. While she is widely recognized as a public intellectual for her active engagement with social issues and the happenings of Chinese literary world, her poems are intimate explorations of the personal. Heartbreaks and losses are abundant in her work, as are literary allusions to both Chinese and non-Chinese traditions. Yang’s verses, while showing influence of classical and modernist Chinese poetry, burst with emotions of contemporary urban life.