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Summary
Summary
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 .
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.
Reviews (2)
Publisher's Weekly Review
The painterly, meditative latest from Chang (after Circle) enters in a dialogue with the visual artists Agnes Martin and On Kawara. Martin's grids and proclivity for numbers, divisions, and order encourage Chang toward quiet reflection, providing a container for sorrow: "all my/ thinking fits into/ boxes that can't/ be opened"; "I stood behind the rope and felt the/ melancholy of the room come out to greet my melancholy." Chang faces down solitude and the desire to be loved by complicating, and at times defying, those feelings: "we grow up thinking the future/ is possible, but soon realize we are estranged from it." Discussions of art invite questions about being observed: "Is it possible/ to be seen, but not looked/ at?" Chang asks, intriguingly admitting, "I've wanted to be the painting, not the painter." This collection is full of memorable insights as Chang experiments with erased and occluded work, all the while operating in the realm of feeling, where "desire is the only thing/ with nerve endings." These elegiac poems thoughtfully balance the head and the heart. (Apr.)
Booklist Review
A minimalist mode grids Chang's seventh collection as her animated dialogues with artist Agnes Martin's work at times mirror the linear abstractions the painter is revered for. Having explored grief in her award-winning Obit (2020) and taken graceful inspiration from W. S. Merwin in The Trees Witness Everything (2022), Chang continues her discourse with makers. Here, in three parts, an echoing of time past and present is balanced with mortality. The middle section, "Today," charts the opening two months in 2022 when her father was dying. Before and after that sequence are ruminations between Martin and Chang, the dead and the living. Art survives its maker, and writing endures beyond the writer. In "Leaves, 1966," "we are tenants of language." In "Untitled #5, 1977," "I forgive Agnes for giving us everything and nothing." Intriguingly, throughout this exhilarating collection Chang's own illustrations parallel the energy her writing conveys. Braving bouts of depression, she reasons with it in "Summer, 1964," "we depend on each other for our sadness." Chang's lines are immediate and affecting; much like Martin's radiant paintings, they exist to be seen and felt, read and absorbed.
Table of Contents
| With My Back to the World, 1997 | 3 |
| On a Clear Day, 1973 | 5 |
| Song, 1962 | 7 |
| Untitled #3, 1994 | 9 |
| Mountain, 1960 | 10 |
| Summer, 1964 | 13 |
| Friendship, 1963 | 14 |
| Untitled #10, 2002 | 15 |
| Starlight, 1962 | 16 |
| Little Sister | 19 |
| Buds, 1959 | 20 |
| On a Clear Day | 21 |
| Aspiration, 1960 | 22 |
| Grass, 1967 | 23 |
| Untitled, 1961 | 24 |
| Falling Blue, 1963 | 25 |
| White Stone, 1965 | 26 |
| The Islands, 1961 | 27 |
| Drift of Summer, 1964 | 28 |
| Untitled IX, 1982 | 31 |
| The Tree, 1964 | 33 |
| Untitled, 1960 | 34 |
| Fiesta, 1985 | 37 |
| Untitled #12, 1981 | 38 |
| Leaves, 1966 | 39 |
| Gratitude, 2001 | 40 |
| Today | 43 |
| Perfect Happiness (from innocent Love Series, 1999) | 65 |
| Innocent Love (from Innocent-Love Series, 1999) | 67 |
| I Love the Whole World, 2000 | 68 |
| Red Bird, 1964 | 69 |
| Untitled, 1960 | 70 |
| Untitled, 1978 | 71 |
| Untitled #5, 1998 | 72 |
| Untitled #10, 1990 | 75 |
| Happy Holiday, 1999 | 76 |
| Untitled, 2004 | 77 |
| Happiness (from innocent Love Series, 1999) | 79 |
| Untitled #1, 2003 | 80 |
| Homage to Life, 2003 | 81 |
| Leaf in the Wind, 1963 | 82 |
| Play, 1966 | 83 |
| Grey Stone II, 1961 | 84 |
| The Beach, 1964 | 87 |
| Flower in the Wind, 1963 | 88 |
| Wheat, 1957 | 89 |
| Untitled #5, 1998 | 91 |
| Untitled #5, 1977 | 93 |
| Drift of Summer, 1965 | 94 |
| Night Sea, 1963 | 95 |
| Untitled #9, 1981 | 96 |
| Untitled #9, 1995 | 97 |
| Friendship, 1963 | 98 |
| Notes and Sources | 99 |
| Acknowledgments | 101 |