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

Foreword by Jericho Brown

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 refreshingly candid and entertainingly provocative collection fully embraces the loss, grief, and abundant joy that come with charting one’s own path in identity, life and love.

‘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

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