With My Back to the World: Poems

Victoria Chang

Apr 2024 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Catherine Ho

About this audiobook

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.

About the author

Victoria Chang is the author of several books, including With My Back to the World; The Trees Witness Everything; her nonfiction book, Dear Memory; and Obit, which received the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in Poetry, and the PEN/Voelcker Award.

Catherine Ho is a Midwesterner living in NYC. She's an AudioFile Best of 2021, Earphones Award winner, and AA2022-nominated voice actor. She's voiced hundreds of characters for the Big 5 publishers, Nickelodeon, Havas, TedLive, Macy's, IBM, and more.