In this week's episode of the Get Lit Minute, your weekly poetry podcast, we spotlight the life and work of poet, Victoria Chang. Her collections of poetry include Circle (2005); Salvinia Molesta (2008); The Boss (2013); and Barbie Chang (2017). Her poems have been published in the Kenyon Review, Poetry, the Threepenny Review, and Best American Poetry 2005. Chang is the editor of the anthology Asian American Poetry: The Next Generation (2004). Source
This episode includes a reading of an excerpt from her poem, "Orbit", featured in our 2022 Get Lit Anthology.
Excerpt from "Obit" [Blame]
Blame—wants to die but cannot. Its
hair is untidy but it’s always here. My
mother blamed my father. I blamed my
father’s dementia. My father blamed
my mother’s lack of exercise. My
father is the story, not the storyteller.
I eventually blamed my father because
the story kept on trying to become the
storyteller. Blame has no face. I have
walked on its staircase around and
around, trying to slap its face but only
hitting my own cheeks. When some
people suffer, they want to tell everyone
about their suffering. When the brush
hits a knot, the child cries out loud,
makes a noise that is an expression of
pain but not the pain itself. I can’t feel
the child’s pain but some echo of her
pain, based on my imagination. Blame
is just an echo of pain, a veil across
the face of the one you blame. I blame
God. I want to complain to the boss of
God about God. What if the boss of
God is rain and the only way to speak
to rain is to open your mouth to the sky
and drown?