Dismantled
An impression of July 4, 2025, with poetry by Victoria Chang
This canvas has nine white thin strips between the red and blue ones. I’ve spent my life thinking about the blue ones, thinking they were the future. But the future was red all along. I sense something is ending but I’m not sure what. Maybe it’s the future.
Untitled #9, 1995*
After Agnes Martin
Agnes only had nine years to live. The angels must have begun to hover around her canvas like monkeys. This canvas has nine white thin strips between the red and blue ones. I’ve spent my life thinking about the blue ones, thinking they were the future. But the future was red all along. I sense something is ending but I’m not sure what. Maybe it’s the future. This morning, I looked at a large spiderweb above my car. When I returned 10 minutes later, the weaver was gone, the web dismantled, but my hands were still open. Maybe a life doesn’t matter so much as the feeling it leaves behind, whether anyone receives the feeling or not. Maybe our goal is to spend all the light. Since none of us asked to be born.
Victoria Chang (she/her) is the author of The Trees Witness Everything (Copper Canyon Press, 2022); the nonfiction book, Dear Memory: Letters on Writing, Silence, and Grief (Milkweed Editions, 2021); and Obit (Copper Canyon Press, 2020), which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in Poetry, and the PEN/Voelcker Award. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Chowdhury Prize in Literature. She is the Bourne Chair in Poetry at Georgia Tech and the Director of Poetry@Tech.
*Source: Poetry (October 2022)
Metaphortography offers a quick dose of visual and literary inspiration to launch your writing week. This is the Monday section of Aimee Liu’s MFA Lore. Our Wednesday section is Writer In The World, a curated collection of essays on the writing life by acclaimed MFA faculty and alumni. Writers in Conversation and other MFA Lore essays on the craft and business of creative writing will drop each Saturday.
As an MFA Lore subscriber you can join our community and subscribe to some or all of these sections!
Coming Live Attractions free @ MFA Lore:
1. Well Published: LitMags!
Live with Creative Director , Thursday, July 24, 4pm PDT:
2. Authors Unfiltered !
Traditional publishing insights from the trenches Live with and
:August 12, 2025 (Tues), 4:00 pm PT: Authors Unfiltered on Niche Writing
September 23, 2025 (Tues), 3:00 pm PT: Authors Unfiltered on Author Platforms
Loreate Salons for Paid Subscribers are now bimonthly!
By popular demand of our Zoom Loreates, we’re now going to gather online every two months on the third Saturday. This day and time seem to work for everyone from Hawaii to Switzerland, so…
Our next gathering is Saturday, July 19 at 10amPT!
All paid subscribers are welcome. As we get to know each other, these gatherings will be less meet-and-greet and more discussion of the thorny issues bedeviling our collective writing life. Consider this online space our Loreate Salon.
Would you like an MFA-level response to your work?
Becoming a Premium Member of the MFA Lore community will entitle you to Aimee’s written feedback on your query and up to 5 pages (1250 words) of your creative work. Your “Take 5 Packet Letter” will highlight both the Strengths and the Opportunities in your work, helping you determine whether it’s time to “press send” to agents or to reorient your revision. Price will go up soon, so subscribe or upgrade today.
This was such a beautiful offering today from this artist; I read it a few times to savor its layers of meaning, see you soon at the Loreates salon, Aimee and friends!