Honestly this collection was really really challenging but in all the good ways. a combiination of numbers, drawing and a unique mind, Change is pretty amazing. This takes time to read and understand.

Thank you to FSG and NetGalley for the ARC.

Now available.

Deep and orderly, this ekphrastic poetry collection explores Agnes Martin's artwork. At the same time, Chang discusses the passing of her father, the recent rise of violence against Asian American women, and her own struggles with depression. The poems are transformative, starting at one place and shifting to another. I loved seeing the paintings intermix with Chang's own lines, the comparison of paint lines to the written lines.

i love victoria chang & i love agnes martin so picking this up was a no-brainer. what i didn't expect was an achingly compassionate examination of melancholy and grief, the kind that permeates every instant of every day. depression, trauma, loss intertwine with lines, circles, squares, and rectangles. every poem reads into you.

I found this impossible to read and completely unenjoyable. I understand that there is a poetry world that enjoys this type of almost deliberately obscure work, but I couldn’t even get any pleasure out of the word choices or order, and the images were so disconnected that it felt like a bad dream. Save your time.

Victoria Chang's previous collection felt a bit more compelling than this one, i just connected with it more. still, there were segments and poems that worked well

In “With My Back to the World: Poems” (Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2024), Victoria Chang communes with abstract artist Agnes Martin’s (1912-2004) paintings and writing. The title for the poetry collection and each individual poem derive from Martin’s artwork, which includes pieces on view at the Modern Museum of Art (MoMA) in New York City.

Chang explores her depression—its tones, divides, and endless numbered gray elements—through her interactions with Martin's art. In “White Stone, 1965,” she juxtaposes her own overwhelming grief and lament with Martin’s pat and prescribed “make happiness your goal.” The artistic elements and (re)constructed conversations offer curious and creative interplay.

“On a Clear Day, 1973,” Chang contemplates the grids in Martin’s artwork, including boxes, thoughts, and openings that are both theoretical and illusionary. Her poem is also presented in a grid-like construct (4 across, 7 down on my e-reader). A marvel of poetry, brevity, and design, it mirrors the seriality of Martin’s initial piece (10 across, 3 down on a gallery wall) from 1973.

Another stunning compilation from Victoria Chang!

Thank you to Victoria Chang, Farrar, Straus, Giroux, and NetGalley for my eARC.

"To think, everyone will write one final word."

I believe my review will be a bit of an outlier, but here goes. I absolutely loved, was entranced by, and (ugly) cried to Victoria Chang's Obit - and I was expecting to have a similar experience to With My Back to the World, and while this was an objectively great collection, I did not feel the same pull I'm used to feeling when reading a Victoria Chang book. I enjoyed the first half of the book, but it personally felt like it dragged on towards the end.

Thank you NetGalley & Farrar, Straus and Giroux for allowing me to read With My Back to the World in exchange for an honest review!

Thanks to NetGalley for the eARC!

I'm a huge fan of Victoria Chang's poetry and each collection she writes is something to savor. Each continue to linger in my mind. I was so happy when I was approved for this eARC. Victoria Chang deftly writes about depression, life, relationships, and grief with such care and precision in this latest ekphrastic poetry collection, which is inspired by and in conversation with the abstract minimalist art of Agnes Martin. I was amazed, once again, with how this collection was written and put together. I can't wait for the next book by Chang!

Thank you to FSG & NetGalley for the copy! Victoria Chang never fails to stun me into disbelief. I remember years ago reading her 2020 collection, Obit, a sorrowful ode to her woes in the wake of her mother's passing. While With My Back to the World is comparably melancholic, its lamenting feels far more languid and almost unrelenting. There are still those tinges of grief that fray at the edges of her poetry, but depression this time around is more apparent, made sour by its unyielding pace, its unending drawl.

There's a need for realization in the world, for Chang to feel existent and understood by others outside of her own perceptions. In "Untitled #5, 1998", she writes:

"What if I've spent my whole life wanting to be seen? In that way, I've wanted to be the painting, not the painter. / But I am the painter. Even now, I walk outside at night just so the sky can see me one more time."

But there also seems to be this sense of inevitability in her poems, a teetering between surrendering to it or watching it play out from the sidelines. Like in "Play, 1996", she asks:

"Is it possible to write down how we feel without betraying our feelings? Once I write the word depression, it is no longer my feeling. It is now on view for others to walk toward, lean in, and peer at."

Constantly, I feel this slight of resignation in Chang's recent work. Her words have never felt gentle to begin with, but this time around, there's less of a fervor in her agony, and more of a submission to it that feels devotional. Something that Chang has always left me with is this sense that grief is so unselfish but also the most self-indulgent feeling we can have.

5/5 - every year with something new from Chang is a wonderful year

5/5 ⭐️

A beautiful collection of poems that deal with topics such as depression, grief, death, and limits of language. I enjoyed the writing style of these poems, ekphrastic, as that is not something I have seen in the poetry collections I have read recently. I will be purchasing a physical copy of this collection because I wanted to highlight so many quotes and themes dealing with depression. The poetry titles are based on the painting titles by Agnes Martin and some contain graphics from said poems which I loved as it gave a hint as to what she wanted you to feel.

“Maybe they are one long string, made into small even humps. If I pull one end, my depression will flatten, but my words will also disappear.”

“I used to think depression was all around me, that I was within it. Now I see that it is always ahead of me. That it is in pieces, but it moves in a swarm.”

Release day April 2nd!

Thank you NetGalley for a complementary copy of this book from the publisher Farrar, Straus, and Giroux in exchange for an honest review.

I real enjoyed and flew through the first half of this collection, but the last 50% felt very repetitive and dense. There were a few poems and lines that I really enjoyed, but for a lot of this one, I didn’t understand what the poems were saying (which doesn’t mean it’s not good poetry, just that that’s why it’s not a perfect collection for me personally). I did really appreciate the themes in this one and I enjoyed how this collection was based off of different artwork and how each piece of art was described.

This is a fantastic collection of poetry that is mainly framed as response pieces to Agnes Martin's artwork, and also does some bonus experimentation with redaction as a poetry form. Definitely worth a read!

Fascinating epistolary collection. Form and content was very inspiring. Highly recommend this collection to other poets.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC.

After looking up Agnes Martin's art work, this work of poetry by Victoria Chang comes together and is quite moving. Each poem is shares a title with a piece of artowk by Martin, thus what emotions are invoked from the piece have influences on the poem. I'm excited to see this book in print as Chang is very talented in uniquely organizing her words as well as to see the accompanying images.

Chang uses Martin's art work as a way to work through her depression after her father passes away, and there is great emotion spilling from each word. This is my first time reading Victoria Chang but it won't be my last!

Wide-ranging and unified. In conversation with Agnes Martin’s abstract art, Chang’s poems explore grief, loss, death, depression, solitude, nature, and the act of creating poetry itself. Her long-form poem “Today” has been in and on my mind since I read it. The clear structure and narrative arc elevates the collection from good to great.

Victoria Chang is an inventive poet and I read everything she writes. This book is full of grief and I could only read a few pages at a poem. Then I needed to go outside and breathe before continuing. The backbone of the book is based on the artwork of Agnes Martin. Chang dialogues with her dead father, her children, and Martin's work throughout the book. A particularly unusual memoir about grieving your parents, and wondering how to continue into the future.

A friend of mine introduced me to Victoria Chang's poetry a few years ago, and I've been captivated by her work ever since. Her latest collection, "With My Back To The World," is inspired by Agnes Martin's painting, showcasing the artists' shared exploration of emotions. Chang's poems beautifully express her grief and depression following her father's loss, intertwined with the profound artistic insights of Martin. The use of color in both their work adds depth and elegance to this remarkable literary piece. I eagerly anticipate the release of the complete book.

A fellow bookseller handed me a collection of Victoria Chang’s poetry a few years back and I’ve been smitten ever since. Her latest, ‘With My Back To The World’, is named after a painting done by artist Agnes Martin.
Chang often writes about sadness and grief, and some of Martin’s later works are named after emotional states as well. The way that Chang has paired her own grief and subsequent depression over the loss of her father, with thoughts and descriptions of Agnes Martin’s work as an artist is brilliant!
Their use of color, both literal and to describe emotions, just add beauty to this amazing work.
I can’t wait to see the finished copy when this book comes out!

“With my back to the world” is a stark telling of depression and life in poetry. Its use of art as a motif, lines and shapes and angles telling stories is beautiful and expertly manifests a visual world for the reader. The long form poem central to this book is masterful in its day to day depiction of mourning, it has stuck with me as if it’s my journey too.

A thought-provoking and stunning collection of ekphrastic poetry that seamlessly blends the worlds of art and language. Chang takes inspiration from artists Agnes Martin and On Kawara and the poems take their titles from their paintings which ensured that I felt like I was walking through multiple art museums carrying Chang's words with me. The poems were incisive and I loved how their construction on the page spoke to the art's structure. I have so many new favorite poems and a whole new collection of quotes!

Some quotes that moved me:
“Every poem is trying to be the last free words on earth.” - Homage to Life, 2003

“The best thing about emptiness is if you close your eyes in a field, you’ll open your eyes in a field.” - With My Back to the World, 1997

“Agnes said that solitude and freedom are the same. My solitude is like the grass. I become so aware of its presence that it too begins to feel like an audience.” - Grass, 1967

“What is art but trying to make something resemble what it was before it was made, when it was still unknown and free?” - Fiesta, 1985

“What is dying but a/form of hunger, visible to God.” - Jan, 9, 2022 (Today Poem)

Poems that I will be revisiting again:
With My Back to the World, 1997
Little Sister
Buds, 1959
Aspiration, 1960
Grass, 1967
Fiesta, 1985
Today (long poem but specifically Jan 9, Jan 18, Jan 26, Jan 28, Jan 30, Feb 2, Feb 14 entries)
Red Bird, 1964
The Beach, 1964
Night Sea, 1963