Read my interview with Chen Chen here!Particular stand-outs include the following: "Self-Portrait With & Without," "First Light," "Talented Human Beings" and "Poem in Noisy Mouthfuls."

#3 on the recent attempt at TBR books that Turned Out to be Okay But Not Amazing Asthetics were totally pleasing and tempting. Love the cover, love the formatting of the poetry, love the repetition of the name. And that title! How could I not give it a try?Along with a 'Foreword,' it contains an introduction, three sections and an afterword. In the foreword, Jericho Brown writes, "a speaker whose obsessive and curious nature is that of an adult who refuses to give up seeing through the eyes of a...

I read this the day it was named to the National Book Award for Poetry longlist for 2017. In one of the poems, Chen Chen mentions that a friend told him that all his friends are about being gay and Chinese (which has also made that poem about being gay and Chinese!) I loved the playful language, exploration of identity, and had fun reading some of these out loud.My favorites: Race to the TreeTalented Human Beings"Every day I am asked to care about white peopleespecially if they've been kidnapped...

Excellent poetry collection. The third section is the strongest and the title poem is unforgettable. Lots to admire here in terms of imagery, energy, really, the whole poetic package.

“Aren’t all great love stories, at their core, great mistakes?” When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities ~~ Chen ChenThis is a brilliant debut for Chen Chen. It is one of my favorite poetry books of all time. Never have I felt that a poet has written his poems based upon my life like I have with Chen. These poems are smart, funny, and heartbreaking. Chen has faced so much pain and rejection in his life, most of it caused by his parents. That his spirit has survived, and thrive...

I discovered Chen's writing at the recommendation of a friend who showed me the poem "Elegy for My Sadness," which I liked. There's a nice bit there about someone telling you to stop feeling sad, and then surprise!—suddenly you don't feel "sad," you feel "the desire to smack that person." But the majority of these poems were really only "okay." The title is the best part.

These poems are sneaky. They might start with a simple metaphor that's straight out of second grade English class, "Night falls like a button..." and they go somewhere else quite unexpected, "... from your grandmother's coat. You worry with your thumb the strangers page." The poems are quirky, fun, surprising, emotional, intimate, and intelligent. I want to meet Chen and hang out with him, but I'm afraid I wouldn't be nearly interesting enough to hold his attention, because he's obviously a geni...

3.5 starsI dislike the glorification of straight, white, male poets, and I feel so grateful to Chen Chen for sharing his queer, Asian American, immigrant perspective with us. His poems hit me hardest when he shared sometimes painful, sometimes joyful moments surrounding these underrepresented identities. Poems like "Race to the Tree," "Self-Portrait With & Without," and "Poem in Noisy Mouthfuls" all struck me with their curiosity, novelty of language, and emotional richness. When Chen writes abo...

I've read a lot of poetry this year - well, a lot for me - and Chen Chen's debut collection easily rises to the top. It is hip, it is millenial, and it shouldn't be dismissed because of this. Chen's playfulness, his free associations will amuse readers, but the themes of family, losing faith, and identity makes this even more memorable. Dear Jenny reads a poem from this book and discusses a few more thoughts on the book in episode 097 of her Reading Envy podcast here!

"No, I already write about everything—& everything is salt, noise, struggle, hair, carrying, kisses, leaving, myth, popcorn, mothers, bad habits, questions."WOW.

read this as soon as it found its way to my mailbox. its beautifully written and so so sincere. poplar street was my first encounter with chen chen and it remains as heart shattering the 100th time around

Excellent collection of poems. I really liked Chen Chen’s sense of humour and his strong imagination reflected in the poems. This collection is about love, family and immigration. Recommended.

"I tried to ask my parents to leave the room,but not my life. It was very hard. Because the room was the sizeof my life. Because my life was small. [...]Raising one’s voice in a small spacefelt at once godlike & childish."reading this felt like looking at a mirror.... this is everything i've felt, my struggles, my identity, my childhood, my wants and fears and religious parents and stolen glances and insecurities and hopes and desires in a book. its like i wrote this book. you can see so much of...

i really think it’s the line that goes “i tried to ask my parents to leave the room / but not my life / it was very hard / because my life was small” that does it for me. i think it sums up everything i am currently feeling right now, as the prospect of being rejected gets closer, and the desire to be who i am contradicts everything and everyone i love. and the idea that being gay makes your life small, which makes you cherish and hold onto the people in your life so much, even if they’re gonna

I've reviewed this elsewhere but it keeps popping up on my GR feed so I'll say here that I loved these poems about being gay (particularly in the context of a family that can't accept it), on being Asian American, on immigration. Chen Chen brings a control of language, a vision, and sometimes a rueful sense of humor to these subjects that helps mitigate the pain around them. Also he captures the passion of sexuality beautifully and the complicated relationships in families.I'm very glad to have

"afterwards, we texted everyone:Don’t be a stranger, but bestrange. Come by often for a cup of tea,in all your unbridled unknowability."

This is an original debut and challenging in an unusual way. In his Foreward, Jericho Brown describes this challenge as coming from the voice of "an adult who refuses to give up seeing through the eyes of an adolescent." And the result is a sort-of Blakeian voice that can perceive innocence and experience at the same moment: Heaven and Hell sit together, though Chen Chen, accepts neither. Recently, I was reading an analysis of Beckett that understood the nature of boredom exactly. Beckett's bore...

GOD. this was painfully beautiful

Knowingly and comically upending millennial oversharing and other false confessionals, Chen Chen's When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities is a series of meditations on family, identity, and sex, and especially exile, as horror-show and possibility space, externally forced or self-imposed exile toward, within, and away from "this country of burning," offering a "metaphysics of madness," but also a grammar of grief, an ontology of loss, and an epistemology of unknowing.

"I know, thought, that there are believers who don't believeout of fear solely. They actually love you. They reach out& receive your touch. Like a friend, like a boyfriend, like the boy beside me, overheating, reeking of sweat..."