Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Some Say the Lark
    Some Say the Lark
    Some Say the Lark
    Ebook102 pages53 minutes

    Some Say the Lark

    By Jennifer Chang

    5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    "Some Say the Lark is a piercing meditation, rooted in loss and longing, and manifest in dazzling leaps of the imaginationthe familiar world rendered strange." Natasha Trethewey

    Chang’s poems narrate grief and loss, and intertwines them with hope for a fresh start in the midst of new beginnings. With topics such as frustration with our social and natural world, these poems openly question the self and place and how private experiences like motherhood and sorrow necessitate a deeper engagement with public life and history.

    From "The Winter's Wife":

    I want wild roots to prosper
    an invention of blooms, each unknown
    to every wise gardener. If I could be
    a color. If I could be a question
    of tender regard. I know crabgrass
    and thistle. I know one algorithm:
    it has nothing to do with repetition
    or rhythm. It is the route from number
    to number (less to more, more
    to less), a map drawn by proof
    not faith. Unlike twilight, I do not
    conclude with darkness. I conclude.

    Jennifer Chang is the author of The History of Anonymity, which was a finalist for the Glasgow/Shenandoah Prize for Emerging Writers and listed by Hyphen Magazine as a Top Five Book of Poetry for 2008. Her poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Best American Poetry 2012, The Nation, Poetry, A Public Space, and elsewhere. She is an assistant professor of English and Creative Writing at George Washington University and lives in Washington, DC with her family.


    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAlice James Books
    Release dateOct 10, 2017
    ISBN9781938584718
    Some Say the Lark

    Related to Some Say the Lark

    Related ebooks

    Poetry For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Restless Herd

      Apr 14, 2021

      Restless Herd
      21 min read

    • Article

      Devil Asks Why You Would Mouth The Word Pity

      Jul 1, 2022

      even in this abundance of dark? Even in this abundance of dark you have totake the stars on faith. Look: Under today’s dim sky there is a basket.In that basket there is a fish. Come night, you are the animal that will eat the best parts of it. And ye

      1 min read

    • Article

      On Louise Glück

      Dec 1, 2021

      I WAS LYING in bed late at night, woeful, confused by another death, this one the death of a close friend; the losses had been mounting steadily, a bewildering number of losses, each one specific, difficult to accept, hard to overcome, and I must hav

      12 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      Jan 1, 2022

      followed—in front, as horses—into daisy& silver dancing, knowing the jaw who unkeysin the danced earth to drink me down to haints,& will go again. was willed. distrusted happiness, addicted to it.a god needs of a god. here, i don’t want to reachfor g

      3 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems

      Nov 1, 2021

      the billboard says blue lives matterand you think why can’t white peoplecome up with anything original you let your eyes drown in the aqua and navybackground surrounding the shield shaped badge blue like the sky dotted with cloudsvoluminous as cotton

      1 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Nov 1, 2021

      It is all, allover the earth, underearth, a graveyard: tree ferns, trees—roots,bark, seeds—ancientlife that emerged from the sea, forestsflooded to swamps& bogs, transformed to peat, transformedagain, sunk, coveredwith layers of earth with strangeamp

      2 min read

    • Article

      Six Sonnets

      Jan 1, 2021

      Goldenrod, I could say, you know, everybody wants somethingfrom me, but, well, everybody wants something and nobody wantsnothing from me, goldenrod, towhead, beast. Goldenrod, you packthe meadows like gold-plated sardines. I have heart palpitationsbu

      3 min read

    • Article

      Diaspora Sonnets

      Sep 1, 2022

      The old men drink their spritzers and gossipunder awnings. Red hued and blustery, like two roosters on the side of a road.Skyward they crane their necks and laugh, sometimes they wonder about kings and future kingsand how the muscles peer from their

      2 min read

    • Article

      The Rails

      Dec 1, 2021

      The Rails
      1 min read

    • Article

      Three Poems

      Mar 1, 2022

      i look like someonehealing from an accidentbecause i am someonehealing from an accidentthe book of actsscales falling from saul’s eyesremembering my capacityfor stillnesshow long can i sitwithout looking awaythe fear of god escapingi desperately need

      3 min read

    • Article

      Bless Your Soup

      Jan 1, 2022

      I am doing the work of healing.As in:I cry to early-2000s Paula DeAnda.I wash the towels from our apartment.I find your resume onlineand critique it harshly for a ghost audience. I come up with new names for emotions, likeDISLODGED FITTED SHEET orDAM

      1 min read

    • Article

      Three Poems

      Jul 1, 2020

      She was a security guard and even though her uniform was black I could seeIt was covered in blood, the marble floor was covered in blood, it wasSlowly pooling out from the space where HER HAND used to beOh my god, I said, then I started to say, YOUR

      3 min read

    • Article

      Three Poems

      Jan 1, 2022

      I’ve seen enough films where a character nickshimself shaving or maybe has a bread knife slip and the thinrun of blood is supposed to stand for some violence,for something he did and is desperateto cover up, but the truth will out—I’ve seen enough th

      2 min read

    • Article

      from BLACK PASTORAL

      Nov 1, 2023

      somewheres, some lifetimes ago I have run so far, so long.There is nowhere I haven’t beenBut here, in this field, a bodyLength from the ragged brinkThat gives way to forest.I collapsed here, the thin, hard slipOf me whittled at both ends.I want badly

      4 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems

      Nov 1, 2021

      What is the uncanny valley? asks the student and I draw the graph on the board, and point to the lowest point, and then move up the slope; This is like a scarecrow, it’s kinda shaped like a human but you’re not sure; This is where you’d put a mannequ

      6 min read

    • Article

      Poetry Rx: This Is the Year

      Jan 3, 2019

      Poetry Rx: This Is the Year
      7 min read

    • Article

      Fifteen Poets on Revision

      Feb 27, 2018

      After 17 drafts over two weeks, Elizabeth Bishop’s poem “One Art” was completed on November 4, 1975. The poem began as notes, and evolved into a villanelle. She changed the title. She deleted words. She reached for possible rhymes. Brett Candlish Mil

      4 min read

    • Article

      Seven Poems

      Sep 1, 2021

      The dancersIn a terribly brightLight blue gauzeRetained the mystery Skating on a lakeBlue and iceAn illusionary timeWhere poetry feels inevitable The terrific clownWho lies insideEvery blue dressDoes he see me Always a starAlways a rootHorrible auras

      2 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Some Say the Lark

    5/5

    5 ratings1 review

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      Extraordinary!

    Book preview

    Some Say the Lark - Jennifer Chang

    1

    A HORSE NAMED NEVER

    At the stables, each stall was labeled with a name.

    Biscuit stood aloof—I faced always, invariably, his clockwork tail.

    Crab knew the salt lick too well.

    Trapezoid mastered stillness: a midnight mare, she was sternest and

    tallest, her chest stretched against the edges of her stall.

    I was not afraid of Never, the chestnut gelding, so rode his iron

    haunches as far as Panther Gap.

    Never and I lived in Virginia then.

    We could neither flee nor be kept.

    Seldom did I reach the little mountain without him, the easy crests

    making valleys of indifferent grasses.

    What was that low sound I heard, alone with Never?

    A lone horse, a lodestar, a habit of fear.

    We think of a horse less as the history of one man and his sorrows than as the

    history of a whole evil time.

    I fed him odd lettuce, abundant bitterness.

    Who wore the bit and harness, who was the ready steed.

    Or: I think there be six Nevers in the field.

    He took the carrot, words by my own reckoning, an account of creeks

    and oyster catchers.

    I named my account "Notes on the State of

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1