Georgia Tech Poet Victoria Chang Finalist for National Book Award for Poetry

"It's such an honor to have Tree of Knowledge selected as a finalist for the National Book Awards," Chang remarked. She previously had her book OBIT longlisted in 2020 and looks forward to celebrating in person with fellow finalists in New York.

Tree of Knowledge reflects Chang’s thoughts on the removal of a tree near her home in Los Angeles. According to Mother Jones, the work serves as a meditation on themes of abstract art, mortality, language, home, and history. Chang explained, "It spiraled out to me writing about trees in paintings that I was thinking about, and then to the expulsion of Chinese people from Eureka, California, in the 1800s." The book intricately weaves together personal, political, historical, and environmental narratives, also showcasing her original visual art through embroidered photo collages made from 19th-century archival images.

Chang holds a bachelor’s degree in East Asian Studies from the University of Michigan, a master’s degree from Harvard, an MBA from Stanford, and an MFA from Warren Wilson College. Her previous poetry collection With My Back to the World won the Forward Prize for Best Collection, while her 2020 book OBIT garnered the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, and was nominated for multiple other honors.

A Guggenheim Fellow and recipient of the Chowdhury International Prize in Literature, Chang also teaches in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication at Georgia Tech and directs Poetry@Tech, a celebrated poetry center and reading series now in its 25th year. This program encourages students from various disciplines to appreciate poetry as an art form and means of personal expression.

Chang is the second Bourne Chair at Georgia Tech to be recognized as a finalist for this award, following Ilya Kaminsky in 2019. The winners will be announced on November 18 in New York.