Hei Xiaobai is a modern poet about whom little public information is available. The library currently holds one work by this author, the poetry collection Between Black and White. Because details such as nationality, dates of birth and death, education, and writing career are not clearly recorded, a full outline of the author's life is difficult to draw, and readers can approach the person mainly through this single work. Judging from the title Between Black and White and its common classification, the writing broadly belongs to the tradition of modern poetry. Around the basic contrast of black and white, it may touch on themes such as light and darkness, the visible and the hidden, and the everyday and the inner life as they mirror one another. The title itself suggests a concise and restrained aesthetic: rather than elaborate diction, it works over a limited set of images and tones, letting opposing poles draw near and generate one another within the lines. This approach of saying much with little keeps the work light in form while leaving considerable room for reflection. On the evidence currently available, Hei Xiaobai's writing is only beginning to enter readers' view, and the contours of this poetry await further works; the present collection can serve as a starting point for understanding the author's linguistic sensibility and way of observing, and as an indication of directions that may continue to unfold in modern poetry.
