Böcker av Liz Chang

Whether she is personifying the colors of her crayons, consoling a friend by clinging to the "doorframe of our shared past," or describing "the secret joy etched in penciled plans," Liz Chang's second collection of poems reverberates with the mystery found in everyday life. She examines "ordinary objects [that] stood for whole lives," and treats them with reverence, sympathy, and humor. Picking through totems of memory-small keys, a bird's nest, grasscloth wallpaper, sepia hair dye, a man's foot, a lace tablecloth, origami paper-she seeks clues to their identities. While some work examines the life behind things, other poems create fictional persona that showcase her narrative gifts. What Ordinary Objects is also her debut as a translator, including poems by French poet Claude de Burine, that seamlessly dialogue with Chang's own poetry. Liz Chang is 2012 Montgomery County Poet Laureate and Assistant Professor of English at Delaware County Community College. She received her MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts.

Each poem begins with a museum tag as one might see next to an artwork gallery, but these poems examine everyday objects given to the author by her family and friends. "On Jolly Holiday" (about an umbrella connected to the children's classic Mary Poppins) was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

In her first collection of poetry, Liz Chang examines pieces of her life as though they were artifacts left behind by the tide: smoothed by time, partially revealed, and a bit salty. She grapples with relationships, reconsiders childhood memories, and confronts fears that one might not suffice, might not make a difference. While admitting to doubt and disappointment, her language is never bitter; she doesn't whine or thrash but observes, gently questioning her own provenance, occasionally soothing the self she's exploring and recognizing her need to connect. With directness ("I want to feel radiant/...to push my capacity/to open to light") and charm ("I wish I were a bird stand/with my fluttering desires neatly caged/and securely bolted inside"), Chang's language and youth embrace the reader in this impressive debut.