Tina Chang is a poet, teacher, and editor. In 2010, she was the first woman to be named Poet Laureate of Brooklyn and she continues to serve in this role. Chang received her MFA in poetry from Columbia University. She teaches poetry at Sarah Lawrence College. She is the author of the poetry collections Of Gods & Strangers, and Half-Lit Houses. and the co-editor of the seminal anthology Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia, and Beyond. In her latest collection, Hybrida (W. W. Norton), Chang confronts the complexities of raising a mixed-race child during an era of political upheaval in the United States. She ruminates on the relationship between her son’s blackness and his safety, exploring the dangers of childhood in a post–Trayvon Martin era and invoking racialized roles in fairy tales.
