Obit (Paperback)
When someone you love dies, everything dies. Her blue dress dies. Empathy dies. Friendships die. You, having survived, die. Obit is a stunning lyrical distillation of grief, written by Victoria Chang after the death of her mother. Initially refusing to write elegies for fear of clich , Chang heard the word "obit" and was moved by the strength of its sound, the long O and the hard T. She began writing obituaries for the many casualties of death-one long, skinny rectangle to chronicle each person, experience, object gone-and this became a new form with which to study sorrow. Chang's poetic obituaries are punctuated by formal interruptions, including a series of tankas that reflect on the emotional paradox of parenting while grappling with parental loss. In writing a book about grief, Victoria Chang has held a mirror to life-Obit reveals a stubborn search for language and for hope.