With My Back to the World
Poems
Farrar Straus & Giroux · Print & ebook · April 1, 2025
Winner of the Forward Prize for Best Collection Finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR Named One of the Best Poetry Collections of the Year by The Guardian, Literary Hub, and Electric Literature A new collection of poetry inspired by the work of Agnes Martin, exploring topics of feminism, art, depression, and grief, by the author of the prizewinning collection Obit.
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- Who it’s for
- Poems meet Agnes Martin’s art in reflections on grief, depression, and how we see.
- Themes
- Art and poetry, Grief and depression, Self and existence
- Genres
- Asian American Poetry, Poetry About Death, American Poetry
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Winner of the Forward Prize for Best Collection Finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR Named One of the Best Poetry Collections of the Year by The Guardian, Literary Hub, and Electric Literature A new collection of poetry inspired by the work of Agnes Martin, exploring topics of feminism, art, depression, and grief, by the author of the prizewinning collection Obit.
Continue reading
Yesterday I slung my depression on my back and went to the museum. I only asked four attendants where the Agnes painting was and the fifth one knew. I walked into the room and saw it right away. From afar, it was a large white square. With My Back to the World engages with the paintings and writings of Agnes Martin, the celebrated abstract artist, in ways that open up new modes of expression, expanding the scope of what art, poetry, and the human mind can do. Filled with surprise and insight, wit and profundity, the book explores the nature of the self, of existence, life and death, grief and depression, time and space. Strikingly original, fluidly strange, Victoria Chang’s new collection is a book that speaks to how we see and are seen.
Art and Inner Weather
Poems meet Agnes Martin’s art in reflections on grief, depression, and how we see.
Come here for
- A conversation between poetry and abstract art
- Wit alongside grief and depression
Expect
- Fluidly strange reflections on how we see and are seen
- Questions of time, existence, life, and death
Where it sits
| Poetry About Death | 82% |
|---|---|
| Asian American Poetry | 39% |
| American Poetry | 37% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- Poetry
- Poetry About Death
- Women Poets
- Authors
- Victoria Chang
- Publisher
- Farrar Straus & Giroux
- Published
- April 1, 2025
- Format
- Print & ebook
- Theme
- Art and poetry · Grief and depression · Self and existence
- Reading lane
- Poetry