Victoria Chang’s most recent book of poems is With My Back to the World (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024), which received the Forward Prize for Poetry. Chang is the Bourne Chair in Poetry at Georgia Tech and serves as Director of Poetry@Tech.
Poetry
Current Issue
The Bear
The Kenyon Review · “The Bear” by Victoria Chang I scanned the coast with my new binoculars. Today was in the glass. So washappiness. So I scannedand scanned. My inner […]
Poetry
Current Issue
The Swan, No. 12
The Kenyon Review · “The Swan, No. 12” by Victoria Chang After Hilma af Klint I stood in front of so much stained glass. With my mouth open. Yet nothing […]
Poetry
Winter 2025
The Bird Cage
The Kenyon Review · “The Bird Cage” by Victoria Chang They couldn’t imagine their experiences withthe tree were different than mine. That maybe thepainting was never about a bird or […]
Poetry
Winter 2025
Fig. 15
The Kenyon Review · "Fig. 15" By Victoria Chang Someone said, Metaphor is making the strangefamiliar. All this time, I’ve been trying to make thefamiliar strange. Now I can’t decide […]
Poetry
Winter 2025
Ode to Joy
The Kenyon Review · “Ode to Joy” by Victoria Chang Where double-breasted cormorants fly back andforth. On a highway of lack and joy. Mouthsempty one way, full of dying fish […]
Introduction
Summer 2023
Victoria Chang Introduces Jordan Nakamura
Jordan Nakamura’s poems are often rich and lush in imagery and in the movements of an intellectual mind, often rife with tension. In “Lychee Harvest,” the poem’s imagery is simultaneously […]
Poetry
Summer 2023
Flower in the Wind, 1963
The Kenyon Review · “Flower in the Wind” by Victoria Chang The flower in the wind can move only as much as the wind allows it to move. In this […]
Poetry
Summer 2023
Wheat, 1957
The Kenyon Review · “Wheat, 1957” by Victoria Chang I waited three months to see the wheat. When I finally entered the small heptagon that they had built for Agnes’s […]
Poetry
Summer 2023
Leaf in the Wind, 1963
The Kenyon Review · “Leaf in the Wind” by Victoria Chang Yesterday I slung my depression on my back and went to the museum. I asked only four attendants where […]
Poetry
Summer 2023
Untitled #10, 2002
The Kenyon Review · “Untitled #10, 2002” by Victoria Chang What happens if these aren’t pastoral or war poems? When I can feel the light I carry on my back […]
Poetry
Winter 2005
Lantern Festival
—In December 1937, the Japanese army invaded the Chinese city Nanking. Within weeks, more than three hundred thousand Chinese civilians and soldiers were raped, tortured, and murdered. Some open […]
Poetry
Winter 2005
Cardinal
The cardinal’s crest, hues of spark and fire, its body jerking back and forth, wings ripping rapidly at air, a machine of flesh and bone fluttering against my car’s side […]
Poetry
Winter 2005
Instinct
—In 2002, Lee Boyd Malvo and John Allen Muhammad killed ten people and wounded three in sniper attacks surrounding Washington, D.C. Because they are aware somehow, and cannot fleefrom […]
Poetry
Summer 2023
Mountain, 1960
The Kenyon Review · “Mountain, 1960” by Victoria Chang Agnes tells us to hold our minds empty and tranquil as they are, and recognize our feelings at the same time. […]
Poetry
July/Aug 2018
Obit
Obit Friendships—died June 24, 2009, once beloved but not consistently beloved. Now trembling, terrified. The mirror won the battle. I am now imprisoned in the mirror. All my selves spread […]
Poetry
Fall 2012
We are afraid to be afraid too afraid to be us afraid if we are us are afraid of
We are afraid to be afraid too afraid to be us afraid if we are us we are afraid of what will happen open this box of us for the […]
Poetry
Fall 2012
Edward Hopper’s “Automat”
The woman in the Automat doesn't know about the earthquake the woman in the Automat doesn't worry about the earthquake in Japan again the earthquake another earthquake in Japan again […]
Poetry
Winter 2011
Elegy as a Box of Staples
A crow scores the wind, elects to whore here, lamping all that was asleep in panic. Its call breaks the panes of our stomachs, sends a wire-thin charge into the […]
Poetry
Summer 2008
Sparrows
—During Mao’s “four pests” campaign against four evils: rats, flies, mosquitoes, and sparrows. I want to pull one down, look into its eye— there would be a village, thatch, megaphone, […]
Poetry
Summer 2008
Elegy with a Dirt Trail
Morning finally. A man is hired to drag a metal grid over a dirt path. As if dirt too needs to be tamed. Another man is speed walking, arms beating […]
Jan/Feb 2018
An Interview with Susan Stewart
Victoria Chang: Your book Cinder: New and Selected Poems was published by Graywolf in 2017. Can you talk about how you put this book together, how you selected the poems […]
Victoria Chang
Victoria Chang’s most recent book of poems is Barbie Chang, published by Copper Canyon Press in 2017. Other books are The Boss (McSweeney’s, 2013), Salvinia Molesta (University of Georgia Press, […]
Victoria Chang
Victoria Chang’s second book of poems, Salvinia Molesta, was published by the University of Georgia Press as part of the VQR Poetry Series. Her first book, Circle, was published by […]