Chez Nous

What is the language of “home”? What would it mean to be “at home” in language? And what does it mean, in the postmodern world, not to be at home in one’s language? These are some of the questions that inform Angie Estes’ brilliant new collection, Chez Nous, her first since the prize-winning Voice-Over. The origins of her project lie in Theodor Adorno’s comment that in the postmodern, post-Holocaust world, the only “home” now available to us is in language. The results, in poems that are lyrical, experimental, and layered with meanings that cross between languages, cultures, and historical moments, are rich and compelling.