Sage: Poems

by Marilyn Chin

A rebellious, refined, provocative, and audacious volume from award-winning poet Marilyn Chin. In her galvanizing sixth collection of poems, Marilyn Chin once again turns moral outrage into unforgettable art. A rambunctious take on our contemporary condition, Sage shifts skillfully in tone and register from powerful poems on social justice and the pandemic to Daoist wild girl satire. A self-described "activist-subversive-radical-immigrant-feminist-transnational-Buddhist-neoclassical-nerd poet," Chin is always reinventing herself. In Sage , she sings fearless identity anthems, pulls farcical details from an old diary, and confronts the disturbing rise in violence against Asian Americans. Leaping between colloquialisms and vivid imagery, anger and humor, she merges the personal and political with singular, resilient spirit. Whether she is spinning tall tales, mixing Chinese poems with hip-hop rhymes, reinventing lovelorn folk songs with a new-world anxiety, or penning a raucous birthday poem, a heartrending elegy, or an "un-gratitude" prayer, Chin offers dazzling surprises at every turn.

Genres: Poetry

128 pages, Hardcover

Published May 2, 2023

About the author

Marilyn Chin is an award-winning poet and the author of Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen, Rhapsody in Plain Yellow, The Phoenix Gone, the Terrace Empty and Dwarf Bamboo. Her writing has appeared in The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry.

She was born in Hong Kong and raised in Portland, Oregon. Her books have become Asian American classics and are taught in classrooms internationally. Marilyn Chin has read her poetry at the Library of Congress. She was interviewed by Bill Moyers’ and featured in his PBS series The Language of Life and in PBS Poetry Everywhere.

Reviews

[Pamela J · Rating 5 out of 5]

Official book review found in the Rocky Mountain Review of Literature and Language. Go to JSTOR or rmmmla.org for access.

[Dorothea Kehler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Scintillating, irreverent, compassionate—these are primary qualities that characterize Marilyn Chin’s Sage. What a lovely surprise that the poet who wrote “If”’s “O gray and lonely April day / T.S. Elephant, T.S. Elephant” should pen the forgiving, hopeful conclusion of “From the Man Who Tried to Kill Us”: “We must turn to / Love” […]. Hope sweetens the truths of “Lockdown Impromptku (Folio I)”: “Stone by stone / Democracy crumbling / Into a race war” and yet the poem ends with “Don’t say we are nothing / Year after year / The pear tree blossoms[.]” As that conclusion suggests, Chin’s poetic sensibility draws on ancient Asian forms and images. Steeped in the world’s most enduring literature, Marilyn Chin, a ribald modern sage, has given us another first-rate collection of poems.

[Jan Priddy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poetry is something else. This latest collection from Marilyn Chin is a challenge—and that is as it should be. Great poems demand the reader take time and take words into their hearts and heads, struggle with ideas and viewpoints that are original and sharp. (The alternative would be"easy" poetry that make no such demands but offers not much substance.)

The "Sage" poems started off the collection with a bang, "Ma'am" and "Little Girl Etudes" each yanked me all over the place, and "19th Amendment Ragtime Parade" had me dancing in place.

I hear Marilyn's voice so powerfully speaking these poems. Not every poem is a good reader of their own work—Marilyn Chin is one of the best!

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sage is a book of poems that was published in 2023 but written during the height of the pandemic.

I’ll be honest; I typically struggle with texts written about the years 2020-2022. Reading about that time often triggers feelings of stress and anxiety, and I don’t yet have enough distance or perspective to thoughtfully reflect on that period of our history.

With that said, Sage is excellent. Chin weaves her clever and biting sense of humor throughout her poems, and her wordplay allows the reader to be awed by the power of her themes and messages without getting bogged down by the tremendous weight of it all.

CW: racism, misogyny, SA

[Carly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Had the opportunity to hear Marilyn Chin read her poetry from Sage, and can confirm that her voice is just as and more powerful off the page as it is on it. I never thought poetry could reach THIS level of…fun? Excitement?? Invigoration??? Most poetry has beat. This collection has rhythm. Consider me a fan.

[Sean Murray · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not my bag. Unimpressed. Better give it one star, so the algorhythm knows

[Sunny Butterfield]

i really love marilyn chin her reading awp last 2024 sooo funny and good i want to give this one to selina for our anniversary despite the covid poems

[Barbara Matteau · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful, lush, topical poems. I feel and admire the “presence” of this poet’

[Darius Atefat-Peckham · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most refreshingly fun books of poetry I’ve read in years. Formally restless and playful, wise and tender, starkly knowing—from here on out, I’ll read anything Marilyn Chin writes!