Victoria Chang
Victoria Chang Poems
My father says the wrong things I say the wrong things
my father thinks he is 42 not 69 my father
was born in 1942 my father thinks his address
...
The woman in the automat must work must
have a boss must walk
to work two legs red with heat two legs
...
soak the glutinous rice, dates, wash bamboo leaves,
curl a leaf into a funnel,
...
While the man is away
telling his wife
about the red-corseted woman,
...
I once was a child am someone's child
not my mother's not my father's the boss
gave us special treatment treatment for something
special a lollipop or a sticker glitter from the
...
Before the pork buns steamed
in the pot, moisture in their
white folds, before the dried tofu
was trimmed into thin strips,
...
The boss is sitting at the desk the boss doesn't look
at her the boss is waiting for the black telephone
to ring she also waits for a ring from the boss he is
waiting for the files from her
...
Then we are in the back seat of a car kissing
not the light kind but one where our
hands are on each other's cheeks holding
each other's heads as if they will fall
...
They say my great uncle read foreign books
in a mud house in Nanking,
plowed his twenty acres, listened to
...
He takes me up to the planetarium to look at stars and planets. The
more we zoom in, the more the planets look like houses burning.
There are reasons for those domes, those halves of things forever
...
The room became a raven until a white fire lit
the wall. The doctor's breath alarmed
...
Now the fires are all out. My throat hoarse
and husky. Swallowing pork can blow my head
to pieces, everything too thick for my shrinking
...
Victoria Chang Biography
Victoria Chang is an American poet and writer. Her third book of poetry, "The Boss" was published by McSweeney's as part of the McSweeney's Poetry Series in July 2013. Her most recent poetry collection is Salvinia Molesta (University of Georgia Press, 2008). Her first book, Circle (Southern Illinois University Press, 2005), won the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry. Victoria Chang was born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1970 and raised in the suburb of West Bloomfield. Her parents were immigrants from Taiwan. She graduated from the University of Michigan, Harvard University, and Stanford Business School. She also has an MFA in poetry from the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers where she held a Holden Scholarship. She worked for Morgan Stanley in investment banking, Booz Allen & Hamilton in management consulting, and Guidant. She lives in Southern California and works in business in marketing and communications. Her work has appeared in literary journals and magazines including The Paris Review, The Kenyon Review, Gulf Coast,Virginia Quarterly Review, Slate, Ploughshares, and The Nation.)
The Best Poem Of Victoria Chang
My Father Says
My father says the wrong things I say the wrong things
my father thinks he is 42 not 69 my father
was born in 1942 my father thinks his address
is 1942 my father sits in a hospital
he thinks the year is 1942 that I am 1942 years old that his
knee is 1942 he thinks his name is 1942
he says he is in the hospital because of weight or maybe
he means weight or lean maybe he means
he leaned on the toilet he was fixing and fell down
he doesn't know where his nose is but he
knows 1942 when I was 19 I wanted to be a doctor
in a few years I will be 42 and I will
be afraid of doctors I can no longer think of the right
words to say my words come out
of my mouth twisted turned to spirals like a dancer
wrapping her leg around a pole
on some days the boss takes our 1942 and turns it
into 2491 on other days she turns it into
1429 and on the worst days she smiles at us
and her smile looks like a 9 turned
on its side with a cat's tongue sticking out when asked
to close his eyes my father points
to the white stack of papers when asked if his name
is Adam he points to the paper as if
to say ask the papers don't ask me he no longer knows
that a Chinese man from Taiwan can't
possibly be named Adam or Bill or Bob or John
or Gus maybe now he thinks
a Chinese man from Taiwan can be a CEO can be
a boss in America maybe now
he thinks his name is Adam maybe that
is why he named me Victoria
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