Prescribee
An arch, precise collection of poems that casts world-historical hierarchies in an aspic mold and serves them back to us on a warped platter.
Reading Prescribeeis not dissimilar to the experience of coming across a recipe in a vintage American cookbook: it transforms the familiar ingredients of contemporary life into an uncanny, discomfiting concoction. Wielding English as a foreign language and medium, Chang redefines the history of Taiwan and captures the alienation of immigrant experience with a startlingly original voice. Flouting tired expectations of race, gender, nationality, and citizen status, Prescribee is as provocative as it is perceptive, as playful as it is sobering.
Chia-Lun Chang is the author of Prescribee (2022), winner of the Nightboat Poetry Prize, and One Day We Become Whites (No, Dear/Small Anchor Press, 2016). She has received fellowships and support from Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Tofte Lake Center, Vermont Studio Center and Poets House. Born and raised in New Taipei City, Taiwan, she lives in New York City.
