Winner of the Forward Prize for Best Collection
Finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award
Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR
Named One of the Best Poetry Collections of the Year by The Guardian, Literary Hub, and Electric Literature
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.
Language
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 231 mm
Width: 155 mm
Thickness: 8 mm
Weight
ISBN-13
978-0-374-61597-0 (9780374615970)
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Schweitzer Classification
Victoria Chang has written several books of poetry, including With My Back to the World and The Trees Witness Everything, and a nonfiction book, Dear Memory: Letters on Writing, Silence, and Grief. Her poetry collection OBIT was named a New York Times Notable Book; received the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, and the PEN/Voelcker Award; was long-listed for the National Book Award; and was named a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Griffin International Poetry Prize. With My Back to the World received the Forward Prize for Best Collection of Poetry and was short-listed for the PEN/Jean Stein Award, the California Book Award, and the Kingsley Tufts Award. Chang has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and the Chowdhury Prize in Literature. She is the Bourne Chair in Poetry at Georgia Tech and the director of Poetry@Tech.
