In this Book
- Circle
- Book
- 2005
- Published by: Southern Illinois University Press
- Series: Crab Orchard Series in Poetry
Taking its concept of concentricity from the eponymous Ralph Waldo Emerson essay, Circle, the first collection from Victoria Chang, adopts the shape as a trope for gender, family, and history. These lyrical, narrative, and hybrid poems trace the spiral trajectory of womanhood and growth and plot the progression of self as it ebbs away from and returns to its roots in an Asian American family and context. Locating human desire within the helixes of politics, society, and war, Chang skillfully draws arcs between T’ang Dynasty suicides and Alfred Hitchcock leading ladies, between the Hong Kong Flower Lounge and an all-you-can-eat Sunday brunch, the Rape of Nanking and civilian casualties in Iraq.
Table of Contents
Download Full Book
- Title Page
- p. iii
- Acknowledgments
- pp. ix-x
- part one on quitting
- Lisa Fremont
- pp. 6-7
- Yang Gui Fei
- p. 8
- Seven Reasons for Divorce
- pp. 9-10
- On Sameness
- p. 11
- Year of the Bombshell
- pp. 12-13
- Preparations
- p. 16
- On Quitting
- pp. 23-24
- part two five-year plan
- Five-Year Plan
- pp. 28-29
- Holiday Parties
- pp. 33-34
- Morning Porridge
- p. 36
- At Lake Michigan
- p. 37
- Golden Valley
- p. 39
- First Halloween
- p. 40
- Majority Rules
- p. 41
- Mostly Ocean
- p. 42
- Dragon Inn
- pp. 43-44
- part three limits
- Lantern Festival
- p. 47
- The Tower of London
- p. 50
- Seven Changs
- p. 51
- Planting Tulips
- p. 52
- Gamble House
- p. 56
- Human Inventory
- p. 57
- Animal Models
- p. 59
- Taiwan Independence
- p. 60
Additional Information
Copyright
2005
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