‘How Alone Barbie Chang’s Mother’ by Victoria Chang

A quiet yet piercing poem, ‘How Alone Barbie Chang’s Mother’ does not hesitate in drawing you into narrative vulnerability. The lack of punctuation and back-and-forth stanzas mimic the inevitability of change and death. The white space is like a normal breath of air until you read the next line—a sharp exhale. Aching familial pain and the loss that continues from one generation to the next, Victoria Chang’s poem has its own uncomfortable and lonely truth: “at some point we all lose a mother”.

Waxwing