Obit

Obit Synopsis

Los Angeles Times Book Prize
PEN Voelcker Award
Anisfield-Wolf Book Prize
New York Times 100 Notable Books
Time Magazine's 100 Must-Read Books
NPR's Best Books
National Book Award in Poetry, Longlist
National Book Critics Circle, Finalist
Griffin Poetry Prize, Shortlist
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. 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. 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.

'Chang's new collection explores her father's illness and her mother's death, treating mortality as a constantly shifting enigma. A serene acceptance of grief' New York Times, "100 Notable Books of 2020"

'Exceptional... Chang's poems expand and contract to create surprising geometries of language, vividly capturing the grief they explore' Publishers Weekly