Obit by Victoria Chang

Obit

$17.00
Sale price  $17.00 Regular price 
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Obit by Victoria Chang

Copper Canyon Press

Obit

$17.00
Sale price  $17.00 Regular price 
In stock
The New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2020

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

Book Details
Publisher:
Copper Canyon Press
ISBN:
9781556595745
Binding:
Paperback
Pages:
120
Authors:
Victoria Chang
Published Date:
2020-04-07
Language:
English
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About Victoria Chang

Author of Obit (Copper Canyon Press, 2020), Victoria Chang received the PEN/Voelcker Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for that collection, which was longlisted for the National Book Award. Born in Detroit, Michigan, she holds a BA from the University of Michigan, an MA from Harvard University, an MBA from Stanford University, and an MFA from Warren Wilson College. The Trees Witness Everything (Copper Canyon Press, 2022) followed. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. She is the Bourne Chair in Poetry at the Georgia Institute of Technology and directs Poetry@Tech.

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