We Speak of Flowers

From award-winning poet Eileen Chong comes a dazzling book-length poem, comprising 101 interconnected fragments that can be read in any order, inviting the reader to construct multiple interpretations.

We Speak of Flowers, Eileen Chong's sixth collection, is a wondrous extended elegy dedicated to her ancestors. Its 101 pieces are a spacious, meditative record of an attempt to make sense of grief in the face of great pain.

Chong's interweaving of memory, history and possibility showcases her mastery of poetic form and craft, all the while displaying her signature light touch in exploring the pathos of things. This is poetry that thrums with feeling, of deep connections to place and ancestral roots, and of the search for meaning in a broken world.