With 18 attempt­ed sui­cides in the last five years, this is no new sto­ry for Fox­conn. Xu, how­ev­er, a reg­u­lar poet­ry con­trib­u­tor to Fox­conn Peo­ple (Foxconn’s inter­nal news­pa­per), silent­ly doc­u­ment­ed his reflec­tions on life on the assem­bly line. Fol­low­ing his death, fel­low fac­to­ry work­ers col­lect­ed these poems to be pub­lished in the Shen­zhen News.

In late Sep­tem­ber, 24-year-old Xu Lizhi killed him­self by jump­ing out of a dor­mi­to­ry win­dow at a fac­to­ry in Shen­zhen, Chi­na. Fox­conn, his employ­er, is the elec­tron­ics man­u­fac­tur­ing com­pa­ny that engi­neers the world’s major­i­ty of Apple iPhones.

The Eng­lish trans­la­tions of Xu’s poems can be found at Lib­com.

His poet­ry is heart­break­ing — both because of the anguished expres­sion of what was clear­ly a life tor­tured by the monot­o­ny and sense of mean­ing­less­ness on the assem­bly line, and because we can assume there are scores of oth­er young work­ers like Xu ques­tion­ing whether a life spent in a Fox­conn fac­to­ry is worth living.

“ The Last Graveyard” Even the machine is nod­ding off Sealed work­shops store dis­eased iron Wages con­cealed behind curtains Like the love that young work­ers bury at the bot­tom of their hearts With no time for expres­sion, emo­tion crum­bles into dust They have stom­achs forged of iron Full of thick acid, sul­fu­ric and nitric Indus­try cap­tures their tears before they have the chance to fall Time flows by, their heads lost in fog Out­put weighs down their age, pain works over­time day and night In their lives, dizzi­ness before their time is latent The jig forces the skin to peel And while it’s at it, plates on a lay­er of alu­minum alloy Some still endure, while oth­ers are tak­en by illness I am doz­ing between them, guarding The last grave­yard of our youth.

“ A Screw Fell to the Ground” A screw fell to the ground In this dark night of overtime Plung­ing ver­ti­cal­ly, light­ly clinking It won’t attract anyone’s attention Just like last time On a night like this When some­one plunged to the ground

“ On My Deathbed” I want to take anoth­er look at the ocean, behold the vast­ness of tears from half a lifetime I want to climb anoth­er moun­tain, try to call back the soul that I’ve lost I want to touch the sky, feel that blue­ness so light But I can’t do any of this, so I’m leav­ing this world Every­one who’s heard of me Shouldn’t be sur­prised at my leaving Even less should sigh or grieve I was fine when I came, and fine when I left.

After hear­ing the news of his friend’s pass­ing, Zhou Qizao, a fel­low work­er of Lizhi’s at Fox­conn, wrote the fol­low­ing on Octo­ber 1: