'Hybrida'
Tina Chang’s “Hybrida” (Norton) opens with these powerful lines about her son: “Everywhere I look I see him,/ I have a right to fear for him,/ though I have no right to his color./ His blackness is his to own and what will/ my mouth say of that sweetness.” As she reflects on the threats her son — and to a lesser extent, her daughter — faces, Chang asks evocative questions about identity and the complicated inheritance of anyone “who has ever been born of mixed race.” She also considers the language of motherhood and the “fusion of artistic forms made manifest through the lens/ of protection.” In the process, Chang, the poet laureate of Brooklyn, weaves powerful narratives and uses various poetic forms to create a momentous landscape.