In Victoria Chang’s newest collection, With My Back to the World, all poems, as well as the collection’s title, borrow their names from the work of the minimalist and abstract expressionist Agnes Martin. Chang uses vellum to make erasures of some of the ekphrastic poems in this collection. The book, in this way, becomes both an ode and an extension of the minimalist form.
These poems, through this abstraction, continue Chang’s study of the longevity of grief, the erratic nature of time, and the systemic implications of collective trauma. These through lines sing uniquely, yet harmoniously across Obit, Dear Memory, The Trees Witness Everything, and Chang’s other books.
In an email interview, Chang and I discussed her relationship with Martin’s art, process, and grief.
Shelby Pinkham: Can you tell me a little bit about how you became acquainted with Martin’s work and how this bubbled into a book-length project?
Victoria Chang: MoMA asked me to pick any piece of art in their vast collection and write a poem. I looked around for a while but ended up being overwhelmed. I then went backwards and thought of artists I knew, and Martin was the one I selected. Once I read the poem to an audience, I felt that I wanted/needed to keep corresponding with Martin so I wrote more and more poems, did a lot of research, and became increasingly engaged with her and her work.
Pinkham: Your correspondence with Martin seems so natural. Especially in poems like “Untitled #10 1990” where you write: “[Agnes] said the worst thing you can think about when you’re working is yourself. In the midst of depression, there is even a difference between I and me. Tears never come out, but drip within the body.”
Did creating this conversation with Agnes come easily to you?
Chang: I think writing is always challenging but in a joyful way. I was definitely in a wind pocket when I was working on these poems, meaning these poems felt important for me to write and so it felt easy in that way.
Pinkham: That makes sense. I ask because I’m especially interested in the visual poetix, how the poems take on the varying shapes of Martin’s work, dismantling, playing with/against her form in some way. I’m especially interested in the visuals’ capacity to work through grief, to contextualize the grief as something bigger, something systemic.
“On a Clear Day, 1973” is one such poem. This one appears handwritten across 48 strips of paper, organized neatly in 4 rows and 12 columns.
For MoMA, you explain that your process for this poem is in response to the six Asian American women who were killed in the 2021 Atlanta shooting. You said, “In some way, [crafting this poem] felt closer to the rendering of grief that I was feeling.”
Can you speak to the process in crafting the poems that followed “On a Clear Day, 1973?” Do all these poems render grief?
Chang: I love working with my hands, whether it’s writing the poems out by hand with a really sharpened pencil or drawing or cutting paper, etc. The state of my mind at that time was one of despair and sadness, given the situation I was in related to my father’s illness, as well as my own state of mind related to bodily changes, chemical changes, etc. It was a very dark time, but there are definitely periods of joy.
Pinkham: What specifically brought you joy while making this book? And/or do you find it more challenging to write about joy or to write from a place of joy?
Chang: The whole process was so joyful, and it always is, even when I'm writing about sad things. I think it’s joyful because the thing I’m making is actually helping me process my own experiences and perception. I don’t really feel I need to write from anyplace unless I feel that emotion. I have written more joyful poems in my current manuscript, but it’s because I felt that kind of joy. The thing about joy is that it seizes you, as Christian Wiman and Zadie Smith contend (and I agree with). It’s an emotion that’s less frequent and shorter (for me, at least).
Pinkham: Will you share more details about your current manuscript? What are you working on now?
Chang: I’m sort of finished with another poetry manuscript called Tree of Knowledge, but I’ve started working on some of the visual aspects within this manuscript. I also sort of finished a prose manuscript called Approach, and it’s also a conversation with a visual artist. In truth, I’m pretty busy and don't have a lot of time these days, but I see a light that is a small dot, but it’s growing.
Pinkham: Wow! I’m excited to read both the poetry collection and the prose book. Also, the sheer volume of writing that you produce, phew. What’s your writing practice look like? Do you block off time? Are these writing sessions very structured?
Chang: I have written a bit in the last bunch of years and that is always exciting. I also knew I was going to start a new job, so I wanted to do some writing before I got too busy, which has turned out to be the case. This spring has been such a busy semester and I have an administrative role with some distractions. I hope to get back to a better head space in about a month. Then, I will spend as much time working on my own writing as possible!
Pinkham: You’re so busy! The poems are reflective of that. Although concise, so much is contained in these poems.
Since your work tends to braid personal and collective experiences and memories, I wonder what you make of Agnes’ notion that “the worst thing you can think about while working is yourself.” Does this notion conflict with the work that you’re producing?
Chang: Not really. I think my “personal” experiences aren’t really the thing itself, if that makes sense. I’m perhaps writing through my personal experiences to something, hopefully larger than me or my perceptions. I don’t like to get too bogged down in the personal which isn’t really that important to me in the end.
Pinkham: That does make sense! The “personal” in your poems does feel like a small fraction of what’s happening. A small doorway into these other surreal worlds. Yet so often grounded in the mundane, the ritualistic humanness. Thinking of these lines as an example, “Trauma is vertical, not horizontal. The horizontal line is gentle. The vertical is aggressive. Surveillance is vertical. War is vertical. A holiday is horizontal. Unless it’s a war holiday, then it’s a square.” They are expansive poems. So many of them beginning with grief, but moving outward.
This movement, this formula for grief, or grief’s manipulation of time, is some of the connective tissue in your work. How does the rendering of grief in this book differ from your previous projects?
Chang: I guess I don’t really think of any of my work as discrete “projects” if that makes sense. They are all connected on a continuum of my own perception, my own life. Most of the time over the past decade and a half, the topics have been related to my parent’s illnesses which were all encompassing and pretty horrifying. I’m quite stunned I made it to the other side in one piece! I am convinced that art can save us, and that art saved me. I wouldn’t have made it without poetry
Victoria Chang’s most recent book of poems is With My Back to the World, published in 2024 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Her latest book of poetry is The Trees Witness Everything (Copper Canyon Press, 2022). Her nonfiction book, Dear Memory (Milkweed Editions), was published in 2021. OBIT (Copper Canyon Press, 2020), her prior book of poems received the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in Poetry, and the PEN/Voelcker Award. It was also a finalist for the Griffin International Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, as well as longlisted for the National Book Award. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Chowdhury International Prize in Literature. She is the Bourne Chair in Poetry at Georgia Tech and Director of Poetry@Tech.
Shelby Pinkham is a Chicanx, bipolar poet from California’s Central Valley. They earned an MFA at Fresno State, where they taught composition and poetry. In 2022, they were selected for Lambda Literary’s Emerge Editorial Scholarship and fellowship at the Writer’s Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices. Additionally, their book, Rx / suppressor, was named a semifinalist in Noemi’s 2022 Poetry Prize. Their writing has appeared in ANMLY, ctrl + v, Huizache, and Honey Literary.
Photo credit: Victoria Chang author photo by Pat Cray