Women from rural areas work in a garment factory in Xi'an, Shaanxi province. Li Jie

Zheng partly agrees. She doesn't like being labeled a "migrant-worker poet", and much prefers to be called a writer "whose poems are about migrant workers' lives".

She admits that she has not studied traditional styles of poetry. Rather than follow a format, Zheng says that she listens to the rhythm of her heart. Another source of inspiration is rock 'n' roll, as she pays close attention to the beats.

"How can a car repairman's clothes be as neat and clean as that of an office lady?" she says. "My world is iron gray. So it is with my poems."

"Between those verses of wear and tear, I am seeking the powers of love and forgiveness through which I wish to release the rage and hatred of migrants."

Although Zheng has become prominent in literary circles, her fame is largely unknown by most of her co-workers. Most people in the factory don't read poems.

"We are like products on the assembly lines, with identification marks for names. Mine is No 245," she says.

Zheng recently declined a job offer from the local writers' association and continues to sell her metal tools. She plans to return to the assembly line later this year, before completing a prose series about women migrant workers in Southern China.

"Without the pain (from hard labor), my poems are without soul," she says.

(China Daily March 13, 2008)