Lion : Poems

An urgent exploration of Asian American identity from a poet with a “fearless imagination” (Tracy K. Smith, winner of the Pulitzer Prize)

In Lion, Tina Chang mines personal and collective memory to explore safety and danger, visibility and invisibility as an Asian American woman. Throughout the collection, Chang responds to multi-hyphenate women artists who create across various media: text, illustration, painting, video, sculpture. Artists include Haena Yoo, H?ng-Ân Truong, Astria Suparak and a collective whose work paid tribute to the life of Christina Yuna Lee, who was murdered during the height of anti-Asian hate crimes, sparking cross-disciplinary dialogue on Asian American perspectives, surveillance and the myth of the model minority. As the aftermath of the pandemic is examined, so too are the structures of bias, racism and violence that continue. The collection’s title explores the word’s cultural history, composite Chinese iconography and lion-centred explorations of strength and mastery. Lion traverses the closeness and distance between the racialised self the world views and the perceived self who endures and survives.