Hansell Poet Tina Chang Shares Her Road to Poet Laureate

Parker welcomed Tina Chang as the 12th Annual Jeanne Harris Hansell Endowed Poet to share her work and her story from youth to Poet Laureate and beyond.

Chang is a highly celebrated poet, a former Brooklyn Poet Laureate and the author of three collections of poetry, including Hybrida, which the Academy of American Poets named a Notable Book of the year. Her previous work includes Half Lit Houses (2004) and Of Gods and Strangers (2011); her new book, Lion, debuts in fall 2026. In her role as Brooklyn’s Poet Laureate, she aimed to expand poetry’s audience through working with young people and increasing literary programming. Currently, she is the director of creative writing at Binghamton University.

However, as Chang explained, her future love affair with reading and writing was not apparent when she was young. In fact, her 2nd grade teacher Mrs. Cusack actually gave her a “D rating in reading” and had to work with her mother to try and bring up her grade. Further, also when young, she was sent to Taiwan with her brother, which led her to begin asking, “What is language?” and forced her to think deeper—a thought process that eventually helped lead her to become Brooklyn’s Poet Laureate.

Chang spoke at Morning Ex about her life and shared poetry with the community in the Heller Auditorium. She spent time in the Harris Center with juniors in American Literature class and had lunch with students and teachers in Upper School English teacher Alicia Abood’s classroom. To conclude her day, Chang spoke at an intimate reading followed by a Q&A. She shared her story and noted that her poetry reflected her thoughts and evolution as a person. She read selections from her upcoming work “Tangle” with artwork by Hong Chun Zhang. “Tangle” is a work that appears in Lion, that explores Asian American female identity, including visibility and invisibility in public and private realms. It uses personal memory in association with elements of safety and danger as an Asian American woman comes of age in the U.S.

Parker thanks Chang for spending time on campus with the community and the Hansell family for making visits like this possible.

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