Trees Witness Everything

The Trees Witness Everything is a luminous collection of compact poems that blend precision with emotional depth. Victoria Chang writes in traditional Japanese syllabic forms, especially the waka, using the constraints of structure to explore themes of grief, memory, and quiet resilience.

Rooted in the natural world, these poems call on trees, birds, and shifting seasons as silent observers of human experience. The collection is deeply personal, shaped by the loss of Chang’s mother, yet it reaches outward into a universal meditation on presence and impermanence. The title evokes a world that holds and remembers even when we cannot.

Drawing inspiration from the poetry of W S Merwin, Chang adapts many of his poem titles, creating a layered conversation across time and voice. The result is a sequence of verse that feels both ancient and immediate, restrained and deeply felt.

The Trees Witness Everything is a quiet, contemplative book that invites readers to pay closer attention to the patterns of the natural world, to the weight of words, and to the spaces between what is said. Each poem offers a brief opening through which beauty and loss coexist.