When tragedy strikes, so many people respond with "I have no words." The job of the poet is to show us that we DO have the words. How do you reply to grief without merely saying ""I'm sorry""? Victoria Chang's Obit is the most beautiful treatise on loss. She manages to capture various endings (life, memory, the world surrounding both) with an understanding that keeps us moving forward. To suffer the loss of a parent is universal. The actual experience is so deeply personal. Victoria Chang guides us between both worlds.
Time Magazine's 100 Must-Read Books of 2020
NPR's Best Books of 2020
National Book Award in Poetry, Longlist
Frank Sanchez Book Award
After her mother died, poet Victoria Chang refused to write elegies. Rather, she distilled her grief during a feverish two weeks by writing scores of poetic obituaries for all she lost in the world. In Obit, Chang writes of “the way memory gets up after someone has died and starts walking.” These poems reinvent the form of newspaper obituary to both name what has died (“civility,” “language,” “the future,” “Mother’s blue dress”) and the cultural impact of death on the living. Whereas elegy attempts to immortalize the dead, an obituary expresses loss, and the love for the dead becomes a conduit for self-expression. In this unflinching and lyrical book, Chang meets her grief and creates a powerful testament for the living.
"When you lose someone you love, the world doesn’t stop to let you mourn. Nor does it allow you to linger as you learn to live with a gaping hole in your heart. Indeed, this daily indifference to being left behind epitomizes the unique pain of grieving. Victoria Chang captures this visceral, heart-stopping ache in Obit, the book of poetry she wrote after the death of her mother. Although Chang initially balked at writing an obituary, she soon found herself writing eulogies for the small losses that preceded and followed her mother’s death, each one an ode to her mother’s life and influence. Chang also thoughtfully examines how she will be remembered by her own children in time."—Time Magazine
Product Details
ISBN-13: 9781556595745
Media Type: Paperback
Publisher: Copper Canyon Press
Publication Date: 04-07-2020
Pages: 120
Product Dimensions: 5.50(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)
About the Author
Born in Detroit, Michigan to Taiwanese immigrants, Victoria Chang was educated at the University of Michigan, Harvard University, and Stanford Business School and holds an MFA in poetry from the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers. She is the author of five books of poetry, including Circle; Salvinia Molesta; and The Boss, which received a PEN Center USA Literary Award as well as a California Book Award. Her children’s picture book, Is Mommy? was named a New York Times Notable Book. She lives in Southern California with her family and serves as the Program Chair of Antioch’s Low-Residency MFA Program.
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