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jayisreading's review
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
4.5
A heartbreaking and beautifully written collection, in which Chang takes the obituary format and refashions them into poems for her to explore her grief in an unflinching manner, meditating on parental illness/death and its lasting impact. What I found powerful was the way Chang highlighted how death and grief encompass more than a loved one’s passing, highlighting a multitude of things that also get caught in death’s hands. I liked that these poems showed how grief is a nonlinear exploration, in which time makes little difference, because, really, isn’t that how grieving works in the end?
I admit that I wasn’t a huge fan of the middle section of this collection, maybe because it was a little difficult for me to follow due to its jaggedness (for lack of a better word). There were some beautiful imagery in this long-form poem, though, even if I didn’t fully grasp their meaning.
Read for the Sealey Challenge.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent, Grief, and Dementia
Minor: Mass/school shootings, Suicide, Racism, and Miscarriage
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