Xu was born in Shandong China in 1987 but was raised in the United States in Iowa and New York.
[2] Xu has published several collections including You Are Not Dead (2013), Phrasis (2017), The Hero Poems (2011), and I Was Not Even Born (2013, coauthored with Nick Sturm).
Xu often writes using idiosyncratic language and imagery to mirror the effect of enjambment in her expression of thought.
Xu frequently uses concrete images to create the abstract idea that she is attempting to communicate to the audience.
[5] While Xu often switches images very quickly throughout her poems her vivid description of each subject gives her work "rhetorically complex but unbelievably casual"[5] tone.