The Boss by Victoria Chang

When I wrote a poem inspired by misplacing a fountain pen, it sounded so much like a Kay Ryan poem, I called it “Material Imitation,” and dedicated it to her.

I couldn’t tell you all my other influences, and I wouldn’t bore you with a list if I could. But I was struck hard by this phenomenon when I read an unsigned obit in The Economist after Seamus Heaney died, and when I made my first, penned response to The Boss, by Victoria Chang. The piece about Heaney, though in prose (and Heaney himself wrote superb prose) had much of the meaty yet stately cadences and sure-footedness he was known for. I suspect the writer had some exceptional opportunities to absorb the same stimuli Heaney claimed,

It would be absurdly premature to suggest that Victoria Chang ‘s future can compare to Heaney’ s, even as her discipline, dedication and strong, unflinching music show a steady trajectory. I begin this way because my immediate, inked reaction after closing her book for the first time, sounded too much like her poetry, and that was fair neither to her nor to anyone who reads this piece. Part of this reason could be that I have been married to a Chinese-American for twenty five years, and though English is his native tongue, I have been exposed to large amounts of American vernacular with a Cantonese inflection. Notice the words “suspect” and “part” in my second and third paragraphs, as I acknowledge the oddly satisfying truth that completely defining influence is either a mystery or a task better left to neurologists and linguists.

Sometime I hear W. S. Merwin and Michelle Tea and others when I read Chang to myself or aloud, but her complete voice belongs to her alone. She often displays a discerning ear, as in “My Father Says”:

My father says the wrong things I say the wrong things
                my father thinks he is 42 not 69 my father
        was born in 1942 my father thinks his address
                        is 1942 my father sits in a hospital

he thinks the year is 1942 that I am 1942 years old that his
                knee is 1942 he thinks his name is 1942
        he says he is in the hospital because of weight or maybe
                        he means weight or lean maybe he means

he leaned on the toilet he was fixing and fell down
                he doesn’t know where his nose is but he
        knows 1942 when I was 19 I wanted to be a doctor
                        in a few years I will be 42 and I will

be afraid of doctors I can no longer think of the right
                words to say my words come out
        of my mouth twisted turned to spirals like a dancer
                        wrapping her leg around a pole

on some days the boss takes our 1942 and turns it
                into 2491 on other days she turns it into
        1429 and on the worst days she smiles at us
                        and her smile looks like a 9 turned

on its side with a cat’s tongue sticking out when asked
                to close his eyes my father points
        to the white stack of papers when asked if his name
                        is Adam he points to the paper as if

to say ask the papers don’t ask me he no longer knows
                that a Chinese man from Taiwan can’t
        possibly be named Adam or Bill or Bob or John
                        or Gus maybe now he thinks

a Chinese man from Taiwan can be a CEO can be
                a boss in America maybe now
        he thinks his name is Adam maybe that
                        is why he named me Victoria

You can’t abandon punctuation without conquering the grammar of speech, knowing when each word needs or doesn’t need help. Victoria Chang is not only the boss, she provides a new universe .This is why her Edward Hopper poems sing with undercurrents of his day and ours, as in “Edward Hopper’s Automat”:

The woman in the automat must work must
                have a boss must walk
        to work two legs red with heat two legs
                        pressed into each other as if one

depended on the other the woman in the automat
                takes one glove off to hold
        the cup to shake the hand of a boss one hand
                        free she looks down at the circle

on the table looks down at the round reflection
                of circular lights her boss circulates
        memos her boss is the circle the circumference
                        circles her each day like a minnow

There is more in this poem and more on Hopper before and after these pages, proof that when you’re this good, what has been over-processed by others lives again, just as the helpless, confused father comes alive again in his daughter’s hands.

There is a compassionate, creative wisdom that is never overly labored , the voice of someone whose steadfast caring binds without choking, which is another reason her grammar is so well suited to the souls she reveals in “Today My Daughter”:

Today my daughter wants to be a waitress when she
                grows up she doesn’t know that a waitress is
        not a boss that a waitress takes orders from everyone
                        that a waitress must run to a bell to the

phone to the customer to the supervisor who is super
                bossy and wears a greasy visor
        yesterday my daughter wanted to be a pet doctor
                        the Barbie book has fuzzy pets furry pets

cute pets with small noses Barbie doesn’t show her
                missing finger from the cute pet that bit it off
        the Barbie is not the boss the dog is the boss Ken is
                        the boss of the dog who likes the dog in a

pink outfit who like Barbie in little skirts with little hips
                if a perfect woman like Barbie is not the boss then
        who can ever be the boss even the man in HR the man
                        who can fire everyone cannot be the boss

because he has a boss who hired him who can fire
                him and even the man who hired the HR man
        has a boss who can fire him there are fires all over
                        Japan right now the fire and water both want

to be the boss all the bosses in Japan lost their jobs
                lost their limbs bob in water no longer care
        about Bob the boss in America no longer
                        care about the cost.

THAT is one staggering tour de force. Personal and political. Local and urgently international. Victoria Chang faces calamity without losing a grain of necessary kindness, and while making a seamless garment of technique and sensation. May the sounds and shapes of her perceptions lead us toward where we need to go, even if we have to stop ourselves from feeble imitation along the way.