July 7th, 2026 — Happy Pub Day to Victoria Chang‘s (CRF 2026) book of poetry Tree of Knowledge (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)!
About the Book
Joan Mitchell said, When I talk about love, I mean loving a tree. When I talk about love, I mean loving where a tree used to be.
Men assess the eucalyptus tree growing on the poet’s street; a crane arrives. The sound of a chainsaw rings in the air and branches begin to fall. This tree-cutting haunts the poet and becomes the locus from which the rest of the collection spirals. It refracts across works by artists such as Pablo Picasso, Joan Mitchell, and Hilma af Klint, whose painting series lends the collection its title and who becomes a model for engaging with the world. At the core of the collection, the long poem “Eureka” examines the violent 1885 expulsion of Chinese Americans from the eponymous California town. Roving, evocative, and intricate, Tree of Knowledge is rooted in Victoria Chang’s crystalline voice and generous, probing gaze, and by certain images —trees, a hanging figure, a branch, fingertips, a briefcase—that resurface like apparitions.
Praise for the Book
“Readers will revel in the exquisite balance achieved by each poem. This is a work of rapture and hard-won revelation.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Incredible . . . Chang changes the way readers see art, the world, and themselves in this contemplative epic that rivals the major works of Wallace Stevens and A. R. Ammons. Highly recommended for all poetry collections.”
—Library Journal (starred review)