Obit poems

"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 p...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Chang, Victoria, 1970- (Author)
Format: Books Print Book
Language:English
Published: Port Townsend, Washington : Copper Canyon Press, [2020]
Subjects:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:"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"--
Item Description:"Lannan literary selection"
Physical Description:x, 113 pages ; 23 cm
Bibliography:Includes bibliographical references (pages 107, 108-110).
ISBN:9781556595745
1556595743
Author Notes:Victoria Chang's two previous collections of poetry are Salvinia Molesta, published by the University of Georgia Press as part of the VQR Poetry Series in 2008, and Circle, published by the Southern Illinois University Press as the winner of the Crab Orchard Open Competition. Her poems appear in the Believer, POETRY, American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, Tin House, New England Review, Colorado Review, Smartish Pace, Blackbird, and elsewhere. Chang holds degrees from the University of Michigan, Harvard, and Stanford, as well as an MFA from Warren Wilson. She works in marketing and communications and lives in Southern California.