The Tariff of Touch

From the acclaimed poet of 50 Love Poems and Territories of the Flesh comes a piercingly relevant new collection that charts the human landscape of economic conflict. In The Tariff of Touch, Angela Nancy masterfully translates the abstract, high-stakes drama of the US-China trade war into an intimate, visceral narrative of American life. This is not a story of presidents or policies, but of people. It is the silent calculation in a shopper’s eyes as they return a staple to the grocery shelf. It is the stubborn silence of a Midwestern soybean field with no market for its harvest. It is the hollow echo of a factory gate closing for the last time. With her signature clarity and emotional precision, Nancy exposes the quiet, pervasive ways a global struggle becomes a personal one—measured in rising prices, receding dreams, and the fragile weight of a family budget. Moving from the rusted-out factories of the heartland to the anxious aisles of big-box stores, these poems form a powerful testament to resilience. The Tariff of Touch is an essential, haunting ledger of our time, proving that the true cost of a trade war is paid not in tariffs, but in the quiet, steadfast currency of the human spirit.