When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities

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, is publshed 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.

• Foreword by Jericho BrownSelf-Portrait as So Much Potential1I’m not a religious person but In the HospitalSummer Was ForeverRace to the TreeWest of SchenectadySelf-Portrait With & WithoutFirst LightHow I Became SagaciousElegyPlease take off your shoes before entering do not disturb2Song with a Lyric from Allen GinsbergTalented Human BeingsTo the Guanacos at the Syracuse ZooElegy for My SadnessOde to My EnvyIrreducible SocialityAntarcticaSecond Thoughts on a Winter AfternoonIn the CityThe Cuckoo CryDidier et ZizouKafka’s Axe & Michael’s VestPoemIn Search of the Least Abandoned ConstellationIf I should die tomorrow, please note that I will miss the particularFrog-Hopping GravestonesSorrow Song with Optimus Prime3for i will do/undo what was done/undone to meIn This EconomyNight falls like a buttonThings Stuck in Other Things Where They Don’t BelongSong of the Night’s GiftChapter VIII 68 Nature PoemWhen I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further PossibilitiesFor I Will Consider My Boyfriend Jeffreybabel & juiceSong of the Anti-SisyphusTalking to God About Heaven from the Bed of a HeathenElegy to Be Exhaled at Dusk Spell to Find FamilyLittle SongPoem in Noisy MouthfulsPoplar StreetNotesAcknowledgmentsAbout the Author