In this ferocious and tender debut, Chen Chen investigates
inherited forms of love and family--the strained relationship
between a mother and son, the cost of necessary goodbyes--all from
Asian American, immigrant, and queer perspectives. Holding all
accountable, this collection fully embraces the loss, grief, and
abundant joy that come with charting one's own path in identity,
life, and love. In the Hospital My mother was in the hospital &
everyone wanted to be my friend. But I was busy making a list: good
dog, bad citizen, short skeleton, tall mocha. Typical Tuesday. My
mother was in the hospital & no one wanted to be her friend.
Everyone wanted to be soft cooing sympathies. Very reasonable
pigeons. No one had the time & our solution to it was to buy
shinier watches. We were enamored with what our wrists could
declare. My mother was in the hospital & I didn't want to be
her friend. Typical son. Tall latte, short tale, bad plot, great
wifi in the atypical cafe. My mother was in the hospital & she
didn't want to be her friend. She wanted to be the family grocery
list. Low-fat yogurt, firm tofu. She didn't trust my father to be
it. You always forget something, she said, even when I do the list
for you. Even then. Chen Chen was born in Xiamen, China, and grew
up in Massachusetts. His work has appeared in two chapbooks and in
such publications as Poetry, Gulf Coast, Indiana Review, Best of
the Net, and The Best American Poetry. The recipient of the 2016 A.
Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize, he has been awarded fellowships from
Kundiman, the Saltonstall Foundation, Lambda Literary, and in 2015,
he was a finalist for the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg
Poetry Fellowships. He earned his BA at Hampshire College and his
MFA at Syracuse University. Currently, he is pursuing a PhD in
English and Creative Writing at Texas Tech University. Chen lives
in Lubbock, Texas, with his partner, Jeff Gilbert, and their pug
dog, Rupert Giles.
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