Untitled #10, 2002

Victoria Chang

What happens if these aren't pastoral or war poems? When I can feelthe light I carry on my back but can't see it or use it?When sadness and language cast the same shadow. These six strips arethe shadows of our blood, proving that every woman's life canbe broken into and displayed. On some nights, if I zoom in to thepainting, they become three sets of lips. If I hold my phone nearmy mouth, I can feel three people breathing on my face. I made aneffort to unlove everyone, but all I received were these lips, slightlyopen. Today my eighty-year-old neighbor told me, Everythinghurts...you'll see. I wanted to tell him that I already see. After adeath, the idea of a journey disappears. After two deaths, the journeydoubles. Maybe our bodies never had a vanishing point,so there will always be hunger. Even a woman's life is trying tobecome more than the woman it represents.

Feature Date

Series

Selected By

Share This Poem

Print This Poem

Photo of Victoria Chang

Victoria Chang’s forthcoming book of poems, With My Back to the World will be published in 2024 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux and Corsair Books in the U.K. Her most recent book of poetry, The Trees Witness Everything, was published by Copper Canyon Press and Corsair Books in the U.K. in 2022, and was named one of the Best Books of 2022 by the New Yorker and The Guardian.

Her nonfiction book, Dear Memory (Milkweed Editions), was published in 2021 and was named a favorite nonfiction book of 2021 by Electric Literature and Kirkus. Her book OBIT (Copper Canyon Press, 2020) was named a New York Times Notable Book, a Time Must-Read Book, and received the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in Poetry, and the PEN/Voelcker Award. It was also longlisted for a National Book Award and named a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Griffin International Poetry Prize. She has also received a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Chowdhury Prize in Literature. She serves as the Bourne Chair in Poetry at Georgia Tech and Director of Poetry@Tech.

Summer 2023

Gambier, Ohio

Kenyon College

The David F. Banks Editor
Nicole Terez Dutton

Managing Editor
Abigail Wadsworth Serfass

Associate Editor
Sergei Lobanov-Rostovsky

Poetry Editor
David Baker

Building on a tradition of excellence dating back to 1939, the Kenyon Review has evolved from a distinguished literary magazine to a pre-eminent arts organization. Today, KR is devoted to nurturing, publishing, and celebrating the best in contemporary writing. We’re expanding the community of diverse readers and writers, across the globe, at every stage of their lives.

Poetry Daily Depends on You

With your support, we make reading the best contemporary poetry a treasured daily experience. Consider a contribution today.