With My Back to the World, Victoria Chang
With My Back to the World, Victoria Chang
List: $12.99 | Sale: $9.10
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With My Back to the World
Poems

Author: Victoria Chang

Narrator: Catherine Ho

Unabridged: 1 hr 40 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 04/02/2024


Synopsis

A new collection of poetry inspired by the work of Agnes Martin, exploring topics of feminism, art, depression, and grief, by the author of the prizewinning collection Obit.

Yesterday I slung my depression on my back and went to the museum. I only asked four attendants where the Agnes painting was and the fifth one knew. I walked into the room and saw it right away. From afar, it was a large white square.

With My Back to the World engages with the paintings and writings of Agnes Martin, the celebrated abstract artist, in ways that open up new modes of expression, expanding the scope of what art, poetry, and the human mind can do. Filled with surprise and insight, wit and profundity, the book explores the nature of the self, of existence, life and death, grief and depression, time and space. Strikingly original, fluidly strange, Victoria Chang's new collection is a book that speaks to how we see and are seen.

About Victoria Chang

Victoria Chang is the author of several books, including With My Back to the World; The Trees Witness Everything; her nonfiction book, Dear Memory; and Obit, which received the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in Poetry, and the PEN/Voelcker Award. It was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Griffin International Poetry Prize. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Chowdhury Prize in Literature.


Reviews

I really enjoyed and flew through the first half of this collection, but the last 50% felt very repetitive and dense. There were a few poems and lines that I really enjoyed, but for a lot of this one, I didn’t understand what the poems were saying (which doesn’t mean it’s not good poetry, just that......more

This totally rocked my world. Everything shouldn't have worked for me (i don't like prose poems generally, or ekphrasis and I've literally never heard of the artist that this book is based on) but it blew my mind. bought a copy for my shelf, going to read again at some point and highlight to death. "......more

Goodreads review by Sonja

Victoria Chang said in an interview that “this book talks about “the inadequacies of language.” And about Agnes Martin’s paintings: “I think that’s what really amazing art does. It’s like, this big door that everyone can enter. And no one owns that work.” From the poem “On a Clear Day”: “Agnes said he......more

Goodreads review by Maggie

This autumn I am pledging myself to falling in love with poetry. This collection often felt engaging and beautiful and also at times a bit opaque or flat. I did really appreciate the themes of depression, grief, family, and what it feels like to engage with the portal/vortex of an artist’s work. Poe......more