Just try it. Fall! I don't give a damn.

You're hurting, so am I,

but I'm strong enough to let you cry alone.

The only laughter here comes screaming out at you like wild hyenas, as in this segment from "Why Can't I Leave You?":

come close between my legs

and let me laugh for you from my second mouth.

In Ai's world there are no redeeming experiences, with one exception, death. There is a stoicism here, an unexplainable will to live. Only her last poem, "New Crops for a Free Man," hints vaguely of some kind of earthly salvation.

There's no excess baggage in Cruelty's lines. If anything, there's a lack of finesse--subtlty could get across some of Ai's scenarios even more powerfully than the raw, hard-hitting stuff that leaves you numb and bewildered.

When Ai came to Harvard last fall for a reading at the Advocate she said as a preface to her new book that you have to go through hell before you can reach heaven, you have to experience pain and hate before you can truly enjoy pleasure or love. Whatever her plans for the future may be, it's certain that at the present time Ai has not yet transcended into that state of higher being. This lady is living in hell.