RaveThe Adroit Journal... rarely in poetry have these tenderly matter-of-fact tasks of household maintenance been rendered so persuasively political ... Chang’s narrative conceits will often employ such ironic humor, or, like Tomas Transtromer’s, comment on their subjects using a kind of Deep Image dream logic, or an uncanny animism, resisting pat interpretation ... Chang’s fragmentation is, at heart, an effort at coherence rather than a depiction of ruin; it represents the attempt of an inspired imagination to reconcile at times divergent aspects of a first-generation, twenty-first century American self, whether these are social, political, or simply corporeal ... Tina Chang is seeking—and finding—a lexicon for a particularly American mutability. In Hybrida, with a mature voice engaged in eyewitness reportage, ekphrasis, and lyrical utterance to convey the urgency of one mother’s concerns, a poet has emerged fully dressed.
