Salvage (Wisconsin Poetry Series) - Softcover

Choi, Hedgie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 029935184X ISBN 13: 9780299351847

Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press, 2025

Synopsis

“Delightfully spiteful. . . . Choi’s voice has the defiant confidence of youth, which we all need exposure to. The poems are a little bit insulting . . . in the most appealing way, like an argument that actually changes your mind.”― New York Times, Best Poetry of 2025

Part blasphemous prayer, part stand-up comedy, wholly unique, this breathtaking collection is by turns devastating, funny, and startling. Whether the site of exploration is Star Trek, Leonard Cohen, roadkill, or etymology, sublime bewilderment rubs shoulders with half-buried humiliations and accidental salvations. The voice in these poems tenderly and tenaciously inquires into how to survive―not how to survive violence but how to survive surviving. Choi is the rare poet who can elicit laughter, sober reflection, and wry bemusement all within the space of a few lines―or sometimes only one. This is a collection that you can read through in a single sitting, then return to again and again.

About this title

About the Author

Hedgie Choi is the translator of Pillar of Books by Moon Bo Young and the cotranslator of Hysteria by Kim Yideum, which won the Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize and the National Translation Award. Her poetry can be found in Poetry, Catapult, West Branch, and elsewhere. Her fiction can be found in NOON, American Short Fiction, The Hopkins Review, and elsewhere. 

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

“Not so scary now
that science has discovered
your feathers”

—Excerpt from “Tyrannosaur”

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 029935184X
• ISBN 13: 9780299351847
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 100