Tina Chang

Biography

Tina Chang, Brooklyn Poet Laureate, is the author of Half-Lit Houses (Four Way, 2004) and Of Gods & Strangers (Four Way, 2011) and coeditor of the Norton anthology Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia, and Beyond (Norton, 2008). The poems that appear here are from her forthcoming poetry collection, Hybrida (Norton, 2019). 

See Work

POETRY / Spring 2019

He, Pronoun

By Tina Chang

Everywhere I look I see him,
I have a right to fear for him, 

though I have no right to claim his color.
His blackness is his to own and what will

my mouth say of that sweetness.

POETRY / Spring 2019

Color

By Tina Chang

Up ahead it’s white. Snow animal,
I’m running at your back. I’ve failed to tell you
I’ve been hungry all this time, to tell you 

POETRY / Spring 2019

Creation Myth

By Tina Chang

I’m without body but forming in the latticework 

of blood cell and fret. Each threat pulls me upward

tempting and building me until my spine lifts into a column,