Tina Chang and Camille T. Dungy present Lion & America, A Love Story

Throughout the collection, Chang responds to multi-hyphenate women artists, including Haena Yoo, H?ng-Ân Truong, Astria Suparak, and a collective whose work paid tribute to the life of Christina Yuna Lee, a young woman who was killed during the height of anti-Asian hate crimes. Responding to art across various media—text, illustration, painting, video, and sculpture—Lion sparks cross-disciplinary dialogue on Asian American perspectives, surveillance, and the myth of the model minority. As the aftermath of the pandemic is examined, so too are the structures of bias, racism, and violence that continue. The collection’s title explores the word’s cultural history, composite Chinese iconography, and lion-centered explorations of strength and mastery. Lion traverses the closeness and distance between the racialized self the world views and the perceived self who endures and survives. America, A Love Story: New poems on love, family, and art from the author of Soil: The Story of a Black Mother's Garden. America, A Love Story is Camille T. Dungy's powerful testament to living and loving as a Black woman and mother in today's America, and her first book of poetry in almost a decade. Piercingly honest and deeply compassionate, this poetry moves through the mounting griefs of contemporary American life with unwavering clarity. The book is part indictment, part celebration—full of gratitude, fear, resistance, and hope. Dungy explores intimacy, parenting, racism, history, and the natural world with clarity and depth. Some poems reflect on the past; others respond to the work of contemporary Black artists. Many are formally playful, including a series of 700-character poems inspired by the 700 hours of sleep a mother loses in her child's first year. Gorgeous, bright, and bold, these poems speak from the edges—between mother and child, body and earth, self and country. They hold tension and tenderness in equal measure, creating a space for love amidst uncertainty. Tina Chang is the author of the poetry collections Lion, Hybrida, Of Gods & Strangers, Half-Lit Houses, and coeditor of the Norton anthology Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia, and Beyond. She was the first female poet laureate of Brooklyn and is Professor of English and Creative Writing at Binghamton University. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. Camille T. Dungy is the author of America, A Love Story (2026). She has also written the memoir Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden (2023), the essay collection Guidebook to Relative Strangers (2017), and four other collections of poetry, including Trophic Cascade (2017), winner of the Colorado Book Award. Dungy edited Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry (2009), the first anthology to bring African American environmental poetry to national attention. She also co-edited the From the Fishouse (2009) poetry anthology and served as assistant editor for Gathering Ground: Celebrating Cave Canem’s First Decade (2006). Her work has appeared in Best American Poetry; 100 Best African American Poems; Best American Essays; The 1619 Project; All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis; over 50 other anthologies; and dozens of venues including the New Yorker; Poetry; Literary Hub; Paris Review; and Poets.org. A University Distinguished Professor at Colorado State University, Dungy’s honors include the 2021 Academy of American Poets Fellowship, a 2019 Guggenheim Fellowship, an American Book Award, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts in both prose and poetry. Event guidelines: Each ticket includes either a copy of each featured book or a $10 Books Are Magic gift card. Additional copies of the books will be available for purchase at the event. A signing will follow the talk. As a reminder: If you are not feeling well, please do not come to the event, even if you have a ticket; email us and we'll work it out. If you have any questions regarding these guidelines or to request accessibility accommodations, please contact eventhelp@booksaremagic.net.