Poetry Reading: Chang and Genoways

Tomorrow, Wednesday February 3 at & PM at UCI: Victoria Chang and Ted Genoways.

Here's a poem by Victoria Chang, after this Edward Hopper painting.

Edward Hopper Study: Hotel Room
by Victoria Chang

While the man is away
telling his wife
about the red-corseted woman,
the woman waits
on the queen-sized bed.
You'd expect her quiet
in the fist of a copper
statue. Half her face,
a shade of golden meringue,
the other half, the dark
of cattails. Her mouth even—
too straight, as if she doubted
her made decision, the way
women do. In her hands,
a yellow letter creased,
like her hunched back.
Her dress limp on a green chair.
In front, a man's satchel
and briefcase. On a dresser,
a hat with a ceylon
feather. That is all
the artist left us with,
knowing we would turn
the woman's stone into ours,
a thirst for the self
in everything—even
in the sweet chinks
of mandarin.

(Source: Poetry (September 2004).

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Victoria Chang is the author of two books: her first,Circle which won the Crab Orchard Review Award Series in Poetry and the Association of American Studies Book Award and her second, Salvinia Molesta. She is the editor of the anthology, Asian America Poetry: the Net Generation. Her work has appeared in The Paris Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Slate, Ploughshares, and The Nation. She lives in Irvine.

Ted Genoways is the editor of The Virginia Quarterly Review and author of Bullroarer. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Samuel French Morse Poetry Prize, the Natalie Ornish Poetry Award, and the Nebraska Book Award. He is the editor of several books, including The Collected Writings of Walt Whitman: The Correspondence, Volume VII .

You can find these two poets in Humanities Gateway 1010 at UCI on Wednesday February 3 at 7:00 p.m. Free. Go.