The Gathering Song by Christina Xiong

Transforming life into art: that’s what Christina Xiong is up to in her moving first collection of poems, The Gathering Song. Xiong’s poems introduce us to at least two women: one who, having grown up in challenging, rootless, sometimes harrowing experiences, is left behind, and another—wife, mother, artist—who takes the place of the first. Xiong is courageous in looking back on her former self, recounting in vivid details some of the defining moments of her childhood, youth, and young adulthood. Somehow, as if against the odds, “a mantle of strength gathered around” her that enabled her to create a new life for herself, a “clean” though not uncomplicated life, a life in which cleaning itself becomes a ritual. In the poem “Clean,” she writes, “Each object in the house is blessed with cloths / and chemicals, every windowsill / and baseboard is rubbed free of dirt and grime. / Things I can put my hands on are made new.” These poems are hard-won blessings. Let them enter you so you, too, can be made new.

–Richard Chess

Christina Xiong writes her fluid word medicine like a sage of the world cafe. Xiong’s language is bold and clear, a trusted wordsmith and strong guide for those learning to formulate some healing on paper and take back lost power.  Journey with her through her poems and emerge inspired, more whole!
–Meta Commerse, MFA, CWP, Story Medicine Worldwide

Christina Xiong‘s heartbreaker and heart-mender, her debut chapbook The Gathering Song has arrived. She peoples her mountain poems with villains and the heroism of being human, resisting, and watchful in the balance of freedom of the self and art. In tragedy, celebration, and longing, and against the traps set for us and the traps we set for ourselves, she peers into the perils and liberations of memory, its un-sentimentality and love, both standing with others and in her own shoes.

–David Blair