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CHEN CHEN included in NPR Books's 2017 Poetry Preview

Chen Chen's A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize-winning collection, When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities, was included on NPR Books's list of "Poetry To Pay Attention To: A Preview Of 2017's Best Verse."

According to poet and reviewer Craig Morgan Teicher, "America's greatest triumph is its diversity: the multiplicity of peoples, identities, and voices all gathered and vitally alive in one country. Nothing attests to this diversity more profoundly than American poetry, which elevates those voices to song. At its best, our poetry refutes hate, represents and finds harmony in difference, counters generality with nuance, and speaks out against injustice.

"These poets of 2017 represent the best of America, its fierce outrage, its passionate acceptance of divergent ideas and beliefs."

Of Chen's collection, Teicher says, "What does Millennial poetry look like? One answer might be this wild debut from Chen Chen. He seems to run at the mouth, free-associating wildly, switching between lingo and 'higher' forms of diction. Nothing's out of bounds or off limits, no culture too 'pop' to find its place in poetry . . . nor anything too silly to point the way toward serious aims. And yet this is a deeply serious and moving book about Chinese-American experience, young love (especially between young men), poetry (one hilarious poem copies the form of the mad poet Christopher Smart to sing the praises of the author's boyfriend . . . family, and the family one makes amongst friends."

Click here to see the full NPR Books 2017 poetry preview.

When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities is available now, only at the BOA Bookstore until its April publication date!

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