When I Grow Up I Want To Be A List of Further Possibilities by Chen Chen

Chen Chen was born in 1989 in Xiamen, China, and "grew up" in Massachusetts in the US. His first book-length collection, When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities (BOA Editions, US, 2017; Bloodaxe Books, UK, 2019), was longlisted for the National Book Award and won the A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize, the Great Lakes Colleges Association (GLCA) New Writers Award, the Texas Book Award for Poetry, and the Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry. The book was also a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry and named a Stonewall Honor Book. He had previously published two chapbooks, Kissing the Sphinx (Two of Cups Press, 2016) and Set the Garden on Fire (Porkbelly Press, 2015). His work has been widely acclaimed in the US, with Poets & Writers Magazine featuring him in their Inspiration Issue as one of ‘Ten Poets Who Will Change the World’. His second collection, Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency, was published by Bloodaxe Books in the UK and BOA Editions in the US in 2022.

 

He earned his BA from Hampshire College and his MFA from Syracuse University, where he was a University Fellow, and is currently working on a PhD in English and Creative Writing through Texas Tech University as an off-site student and the recipient of a J.T. and Margaret Talkington Fellowship. He edits Underblong with the poet Sam Herschel Wein and serves as a contributing editor for Bettering American Poetry. Chen lives in frequently snowy Rochester, NY, with his partner, Jeff Gilbert and their pug dog, Mr Rupert Giles. He was the 2018-2020 Jacob Ziskind Poet-in-Residence at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts.

‘Chen Chen refuses to be boxed in or nailed down. He is a poet of Whitman’s multitudes and of Langston Hughes’ blues, of Dickinson’s "so cold no fire can warm me" and of Michael Palmer’s comic interrogation. What unifies the brilliance of When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities is a voice desperate to believe that within every one of life’s sadnesses there is also hope, meaning, and – if we are willing to laugh at ourselves – humor. This is a book I wish existed when I first began reading poetry. Chen is a poet I’ll be reading for the rest of my life.’ – Jericho Brown

 

‘If I have to pick poetry favourites, which is always hardest, they have to include: Chen Chen When I grow up I want to be a list of further possibilities’ – Polly Atkin, The Lonely Crowd (Books of the Year 2019)

 

‘Chen Chen’s When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities asks how one might find humour, hope and joy amid the tensions that arise from conflicting loyalties. Queer, Asian-American and immigrant experiences collide to inform Chen’s sensual and vivid verse which attests to the surreal and dream-like nature of memory… Following in the footsteps of Walt Whitman, Allen Ginsberg and Frank O’Hara, Chen reaches for the sublime by offering his reader the seemingly quotidian… Chen reminds us in this tender and free-wheeling debut that all relationships are “a feat of engineering”, whether with one’s country, one’s family, or oneself.’ – Mary Jean Chan, The Guardian

 

‘In a world of bombastic corporate LGBT Pride and an America publicly grappling with immigrant difference and integration, this is essential reading for “love & forgiveness”…’ – Alex Pryce, The Poetry Review

 

‘Chen Chen’s poems continually surprise and delight me, with their luscious long lines and unfurling waves of imagery — from falling snow, to croissants, to Asian American sex symbols. Each time I come back to this collection I find something new; an image I read too quickly the first time, too hungry to take in the whole poem all at once. Some of my favourite, most tender love poems in the world live here in this book — love poems addressed not just to lovers but to parents, friends, food, and to the self.’ -  Nina Powles, National Poetry Library Staff Picks Summer 2022, on When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities

 

'Heartfelt and light-hearted yet palpably rooted in the immigrant experience, Chinese American poet Chen Chen’s stunning collection of poetry When I Grow Up I want to be a List of Further Possibilities, ponders on the sense of self as it moves through the multiplicities of life in its existential shades, tinged with the desperate longing of human bonding. The overarching personal voice of his queer, Chinese-American immigrant identity frames his journey right on from his childhood days, to growing up, having a troubled equation with his mother for his sexuality to finding love while still yearning for it. Even as he roves from one subject to another, the divergences delve into the microcosm of the family while also touching upon the age-old, pervading themes of love and loss, sorrow, farewell and more. Yet, seeing his life through an adolescent’s perspective never quite leaves the poems.' - The Telegraph India (Nine powerful books of poetry)

 

‘Chen Chen is already one of my favorite poets ever. Funny, absurd, bitter, surreal, always surprising, and deeply in love with this flawed world. I’m in love with this book.’ – Sherman Alexie

 

The radioactive spider that bit Chen Chen (isn’t that how first books get made?) gave him powers both demonic and divine. The bite transmitted vision, worry, want, memory of China, America’s grief, and People magazine, as well as a radical queer critique of the normative. What a gift that bite was – linguistic, erotic, politic and impolitic, idiosyncratic and emphatic. What a blessing and burden to write out of the manifold possibilities of that contact.’ – Bruce Smith

 

‘A debut collection that cannot be ignored… by turns comic, dark, self-obsessed, playful, and restless… This is a book whose narrator is bursting at the seams with energy because he has so much to say… These poems are embracing of our human flaws while also turning to the positive connections we make in our lives.' – Judges, GLCA New Writers Award

 

‘His poems boast the frank ease of a late night Gchat with a bright, emotionally available friend… Like the great mid-century New York poet Frank O'Hara, Chen has an avid eye for everyday details that bridge emotional, domestic, and cultural landscapes… It’s a bracingly wry meta-reflection on his story of identity – the loving particulars balanced by a dose of filial bitterness. Chen is a rarity among this new cohort of poets.’ – Jesse Lichtenstein, ‘How Poetry Came to Matter Again’, The Atlantic

Format: Paperback / softback 104 pages
Publisher: Bloodaxe Books Ltd
Imprint: Bloodaxe Books Ltd
Edition: International
ISBN: 9781780374864
Published: 20 Jun 2019
Weight: 226g
Dimensions: 226 x 174 x 8 (mm)