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# One Poem by Chia-Lun Chang
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/one-poem-by-chia-lun-chang/
- Published: 2017-06-14T11:01:27.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:41:06.000Z
- Description: Our poetry editor, Wendy Xu, has selected one poem by Chia-Lun Chang for her monthly series that brings original poetry to the screens of Hyperallergic readers.
- Author: Wendy Xu
- Tags: Poetry, Hyperallergic Poetry, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:23 (2016, 2017, part 2)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2017/06/img_7183-1.jpg)

Installation view of Joan Jonas: What Is Found In the Windowless House Is True at Gavin Brown (photo by Elisa Wouk Almino for Hyperallergic)

## Against Nostalgia

water between somewhere cider  
when volatile sky before sum rain  
drops before faces astray raise  
your head from a dictionary  
raise your hat from one and another  
degree put Iowa consciousness down  
is age a mother it’s not funny yeah I  
am so humid when we lie under  
the tree ends up being a meeting five  
minutes vague putrid roots there  
is no construct nature she ain’t  
transplanted seeding

please sometimes I break you  
I have been spending my entire  
life preparing for leaving grey  
peace off making like with myself  
wipe out lotus unaided stages

too many tiring people one  
step away from disappearing  
as soon as they open windows  
drip pauses typewriting  
mail mechanism out melt  
sweat shirt I don’t see  
shores pepper blind do you  
hear my French war is a peach  
of wall war raises waves re-  
volution young adults hide  
behind hinoki tables you don’t  
come to an end I am com-  
pliable to answer I think all  
I want is being flawless  
teary eyes, sparkling tumors so  
I go, I lie, I tree and I were

\* \* \*

[Chia-Lun Chang](http://chialunchang.tumblr.com/?ref=hyperallergic.com) is the author of a chapbook, [*One Day We Become Whites*](http://www.nodearmagazine.com/shop/chang-one-day-we-become-whites?ref=hyperallergic.com) (No, Dear/Small Anchor Press), recent writing can be found in Literary Hub, the Brooklyn Rail, and Ugly Duckling Presse’s 6×6 Journal. A semi-finalist for the 2017 Discovery / Boston Review Contest, she has received support from Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the Center for Book Arts and Poets House. Born and raised in Taipei, Taiwan, she lives in New York City.

*Readers are encouraged to submit 3–5 poems as a PDF to Wendy Xu for consideration at* [*poetry@hyperallergic.com*](mailto:poetry@hyperallergic.com)*.*