Victoria Chang: In-Person & Online

Jay L. Clendenin

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Poetry

Victoria Chang: In-Person & Online

Past Event: Tuesday, April 2, 2024

At Rainier Arts Center

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In Person & Online

Although this event has passed, you can still purchase a digital pass to watch the event through April 9 at 7:30 p.m.

Victoria Chang has garnered acclaim with her collection Obit and her nonfiction exploration Dear Memory. Her new collection of poetry, With My Back to the World, is inspired by the work of Agnes Martin, exploring topics of feminism, art, depression, and grief with Chang’s signature taut language and brilliant imagery.

Q&A with Jane Wong.

With My Back to the World engages with the paintings and writings of Agnes Martin, the celebrated abstract artist, in ways that open up new modes of expression, expanding the scope of what art, poetry, and the human mind can do. Filled with surprise and insight, wit and profundity, the book explores the nature of the self, of existence, life and death, grief and depression, time and space. Strikingly original, fluidly strange, Victoria Chang’s new collection is a book that speaks to how we see and are seen.

Victoria Chang’s new book of poems, With My Back to the World will be published in 2024 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Her latest book of poetry is The Trees Witness Everything (Copper Canyon Press, 2022). Her nonfiction book, Dear Memory (Milkweed Editions), was published in 2021. OBIT (Copper Canyon Press, 2020), her prior book of poems received the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in Poetry, and the PEN/Voelcker Award. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Chowdhury International Prize in Literature. She is the Bourne Chair in Poetry at Georgia Tech and Director of Poetry@Tech.

Jane Wong is the author of the debut memoir, Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City, out now from Tin House (2023). She is also the author of two books of poetry: How to Not Be Afraid of Everything from Alice James (2021) and Overpour from Action Books (2016). She holds an M.F.A. in Poetry from the University of Iowa and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Washington and is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Western Washington University. Her poems can be found in places such as Best American Nonrequired Reading 2019, Best American Poetry 2015, The New York Times, American Poetry Review, POETRY, The Kenyon Review, New England Review, and others. Her essays have appeared in places such as McSweeney’s, Black Warrior Review, Ecotone, The Common, The Georgia Review, Shenandoah, and Want: Women Writing About Desire (Catapult).

A Kundiman fellow, she is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize and fellowships and residencies from the U.S. Fulbright Program, Artist Trust, Harvard’s Woodberry Poetry Room, 4Culture, the Fine Arts Work Center, Bread Loaf, Hedgebrook, Willapa Bay, the Jentel Foundation, UCross, Mineral School, the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, Loghaven, and others.

Event Details

Rainier Arts Center

3515 S Alaska St, Seattle, WA 98118

View directions.

Know Before You Go

Can't find your tickets?

All tickets have been emailed for this event, so be sure to check your inbox for an email from boxoffice@lectures.org. Email or call us at 206-621-2230 x10 if you can’t find them.

For in-person attendance: Your e-tickets have been emailed.

For online attendance: If you purchased a digital pass, SAL will send a pre-event reminder email with instructions to log in and access the online stream on the day of the event. The night of your event, return to lectures.org/event/victoria-chang and enter the password where prompted. The program begins at 7:30 p.m. (PT) and will be available for viewing for a week after the event.

If you have opted out of receiving SAL emails, you will miss this important information—please email us at boxoffice@lectures.org and we will assist you.

Seating in the Hall

For the in-person event, the lobby doors, SAL Box Office, and auditorium doors open at 6:30 p.m. (PT).

All seating is General Admission by section with the exception of Grand Patron seats, which are reserved.

Late seating is permitted at SAL events. However, your seat is not guaranteed after the program has begun.

Have a question for the speaker?

Want to ask our speaker something? We invite you to submit questions for our Q&A. Check your pre-event email for a link!

Books

Our partner bookstore, Open Books, will have books for sale at their table in the lobby and on their website.

Patrons & Grand Patrons, Have a Drink on SAL!

Patron & Grand Patron seating includes a pre-event drink ticket! Check your pre-event email for details.

Need an exchange?

Please note: in-person tickets do not include digital access. (Curious to learn why? Check out our FAQ.)

If you need to exchange your in-person ticket for a digital pass, SAL kindly asks that you please contact the box office before noon on the day of your event.

Tickets and subscriptions are non-refundable.

Transportation & Parking

This event will be held at the Rainier Arts Center.

Rainier Arts Center is Southeast Seattle’s community performing arts center, which overlooks Columbia Park at the gateway to Columbia City. The Center is located at the corner of Rainier Ave S and S Alaska St.

By Car

Click here for directions.

By Public Transit

The Center is three blocks from the Columbia City Light Rail Station and is served by King County Metro bus routes #7 and #50.

Parking

The parking lot can accommodate 15 vehicles; additional parking is available on the street.

Accessibility

Open Captioning is an option for people who have hearing losses, where a captioning screen displaying the words that are spoken or sung is placed on stage. To make a request for open captioning, please contact us at boxoffice@lectures.org or 206.621.2230×10. Please note: for in-person captioning at Langston, we appreciate a two-week advance notice to allow us time to secure captioning services. 

Closed Captioning is an option for people who have hearing loss, where captioning displays the words that are spoken or sung at the bottom of the video during an online event. Captioning is available for all online events; click the “CC” button to view captions during the event.

Sign Language Interpretation is available upon request for Deaf, DeafBlind, and hard of hearing individuals at all in-person and online events. To make a request for interpretation, please contact us at boxoffice@lectures.org or 206.621.2230×10, or select “Sign Language Interpretation” from the Accessibility section during your ticket checkout process and we will contact you to confirm details. Please note: we appreciate a two-week advance notice to allow us time to secure interpretation

Assistive Listening Devices (ALDs) are devices that people with hearing loss use in conjunction with their hearing device (hearing aids or cochlear implants). To pick up a headset, check in with the SAL Box Office when you arrive.

Wheelchair Accessible Seating and Accessible Restrooms are available in the theatre, which complies with the Americans with Disabilities Act. To reserve seating for a specific mobility concern, please contact us at boxoffice@lectures.org or 206.621.2230×10, or select “Wheelchair Accessible or Alternative Seating Options” during ticket checkout, and we will contact you to confirm details.

Guide and service dogs are welcome.

We are pleased to offer these accessibility services at our venues, and they are provided at no additional cost to ticket holders. Please contact us with any questions and feedback about how we can be more accessible and inclusive. Our Patron Services Manager is available at boxoffice@lectures.org, or Tuesday-Friday, from 12 noon–5 p.m., at 206.621.2230×10.

For more accessibility information, please head to lectures.org/accessibility. If you would like to make accessibility arrangements you do not see listed here, please contact our box office or select “Other Accommodations” from the Accessibility section during your ticket checkout process, and we will contact you to confirm details.

Sponsors

Poetry Series Sponsor

Charles B. & Barbara Wright