Obit

In her fifth collection, Guggenheim Fellowship winner Chang (The Boss) uses an unusual subject—obituaries—to shed light on what qualities make for a good life as well as a passable death. In predominantly page-length prose poems, her obits address the speaker’s parents but also cover privacy, language, and the future as well as memory, hope, and even obsession: “Sadness—dies while the man across the street trims the hedges and I can see my children doing cartwheels.” The poems are infused with both grief and the need to accept it while responding to the demands of a career and raising a family. Using a first line from Sylvia Plath as its title, “I am a Miner. The Light Turns Blue,” the free-verse poem comprising the book’s second section, reinforces themes of death and grief while also considering ambition, happiness, and rain. At times, it becomes a hodgepodge but is also rich with beautiful lines that connect readers to emotion. A series of tanka about parenting become side notes to the narrative flow and are, on the whole, less effective.