Chen Chen
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chenchenwrites.bsky.social
Chen Chen
@chenchenwrites.bsky.social
5.3K followers 820 following 910 posts
traveling poet • phd in english • 2 books with @boa-editions.bsky.social • latest chapbook @ghostcitypress.bsky.social • faculty at new england college • abolish the police & free palestine

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https://www.chenchenwrites.com/the-latest
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chenchenwrites.bsky.social
Write into the honey.

...

Write into the rain.

—Rick Barot
Write into the smudge in the painting where the pink lays into the green. Write into the plush of his lower lip. Write into the light pouring from the oculus above the baroque courtyard. Write into the whippoorwill that sings each morning, bringing in the morning. The two old balloons caught in the branch outside the fourth-floor window. The sky and its gray flannel suit. Write into the person practicing scales but practicing them out of order. Write into the honey. The story he told about the hierarchies of honeybees. The story he told about the man mummified in honey. Write into his white hands. Write into the smell of pomade. Write into the smell of August, a thug of a smell. Write into each trivial but astonishing trick, like roller-skating backwards or snipping thread with your teeth. Write into the rain. Write into its fall, knowing that the only god you can know is gravity.
September 27, 2025 at 7:30 PM
chenchenwrites.bsky.social
oh! my second book just turned three!! happy third bday, emergency contact!!!
i’m standing outside holding a copy of my second book, Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency. i’m wearing a black cap, black glasses, a black, partially see-thru shirt, black shorts, white socks, & black sneakers. i’m also carrying a small bag with colorful floral design
September 15, 2025 at 8:08 PM
chenchenwrites.bsky.social
got to read a favorite poem to some adorable farm friends
August 23, 2025 at 2:55 PM
chenchenwrites.bsky.social
last night’s reading on this outdoor stage felt extra special. an amphitheater! i always picture big ones, but this amphitheater was so intimate and perfect for poetry
nighttime. i’m standing & reading at a mic on a wooden stage in the middle of an amphitheater. trees tower over the stage. string lights provide soft lighting
August 16, 2025 at 10:49 PM
chenchenwrites.bsky.social
recent reading fit

🌻 🐶 💙 🌸 🌹
i’m standing in an auditorium & i’m wearing black glasses, a blue shirt with a dog logo on the chest, white trousers with a sunflower print, & two different sneakers with complementary embroidered floral patterns
July 31, 2025 at 10:23 PM
chenchenwrites.bsky.social
never stop yearning
i’m yearning at a windowsill in glasses & a grey shirt
June 29, 2025 at 2:39 PM
chenchenwrites.bsky.social
brb becoming part of a tree
i’m standing in a hollowed out part of the trunk of a large tree. i’m wearing a black outfit with gold shoes
June 23, 2025 at 1:16 PM
chenchenwrites.bsky.social
happy solstice!
i’m standing in front of trees with pink blossoms. i’m wearing a black outfit with gold shoes & carrying a red bag with embroidered fox
June 20, 2025 at 11:22 PM
chenchenwrites.bsky.social
how it feels to feel anything
a big ol’ fish with a great big face at the toronto aquarium
June 12, 2025 at 3:05 PM
chenchenwrites.bsky.social
i feel like this photo says “june”
i’m sitting at a table after dinner, during golden hour (before sunset). my face looks pretty in the light
June 7, 2025 at 9:55 PM
chenchenwrites.bsky.social
i looked cute at this podium last night
black & white shot of me adjusting the mic at a podium—at the faculty reading for the pocantico center residency
June 5, 2025 at 8:52 PM
chenchenwrites.bsky.social
can’t believe this spring marks 10 years since i graduated from my mfa. i faced a lot of difficulty navigating syracuse—& it was also a joyful time. i read a lot. i wrote most of what would become my 1st book. i met my partner (in this pic!), my best friend, & amazing writers i continue to follow
jeff & i, all dressed up, seated at a table at syracuse mfa graduation (actually not my own in 2015, but the previous year’s). look at our baby faces!
June 4, 2025 at 5:27 PM
chenchenwrites.bsky.social
found my books in the toronto reference library, which is such a gorgeous place (if i lived in toronto i’d want to be here every single day)
i’m standing between the stacks, holding my first and second books. i’m wearing clear frame glasses, a short-sleeved black button-down shirt with gold/white tree pattern, & black jeans
May 31, 2025 at 9:16 PM
chenchenwrites.bsky.social
a butterfly in short shorts
i’m standing in front of a mural of a butterfly—i’m standing in the middle so it looks like i have butterfly wings. i’m wearing a blue jacket over a lilac shirt, black runner shorts, pale green socks, & grey sneakers with purple laces
May 30, 2025 at 12:55 PM
chenchenwrites.bsky.social
had a nice time in toronto
i’m standing on a street in downtown toronto, wearing a black cap, clear frame glasses, an unbuttoned long-sleeved green shirt over a black tank top, white runner shorts, pale green socks, and grey sneakers with purple laces. i’m carrying a tote bag and a brown paper shopping bag
May 28, 2025 at 10:13 PM
chenchenwrites.bsky.social
how to hold more than one umbrella at the same time
i’m standing on a street in rochester, ny, while holding an umbrella in each hand—one black, one purple. i’m wearing black glasses, a long-sleeved shirt with green, maroon, pink, & purple stripes, purple denim shorts, & black sneakers. i’m also carrying a small green cross-body leather bag
May 23, 2025 at 9:18 PM
chenchenwrites.bsky.social
thinking, can’t stop thinking about this passage from Jennifer Chang’s poem “Time, Rampant and Flourishing”
being young can be a habit of being wrong, of writing letters only to hear one's own voice. Love is hard because who it affirms is not always the loved one, is not always the lover, so what does it affirm?
May 16, 2025 at 2:26 AM
chenchenwrites.bsky.social
mother's day is a challenging, conflicted one for me, as i'm sure it is for so many. but i can't help but think again of this beautiful poem by Ada Limón—
The Raincoat by Ada Limón When the doctor suggested surgery and a brace for all my youngest years, my parents scrambled to take me to massage therapy, deep tissue work, osteopathy, and soon my crooked spine unspooled a bit, I could breathe again, and move more in a body unclouded by pain. My mom would tell me to sing songs to her the whole forty-five minute drive to Middle Two Rock Road and forty- five minutes back from physical therapy. She’d say, even my voice sounded unfettered by my spine afterward. So I sang and sang, because I thought she liked it. I never asked her what she gave up to drive me, or how her day was before this chore. Today, at her age, I was driving myself home from yet another spine appointment, singing along to some maudlin but solid song on the radio, and I saw a mom take her raincoat off and give it to her young daughter when a storm took over the afternoon. My god, I thought, my whole life I’ve been under her raincoat thinking it was somehow a marvel that I never got wet. [poem also here: https://poets.org/poem/raincoat]
May 11, 2025 at 9:55 PM
chenchenwrites.bsky.social
in bloom
tree with pink blossoms
May 2, 2025 at 10:39 PM
chenchenwrites.bsky.social
omg it’s may. i forgot to post about national poetry month in april. & i forgot it was my first book’s bday on april 11th. so, here is a late post celebrating the 8th (!!!) bday of When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities (@boa-editions.bsky.social). & happy poetry LIFE 🤠
i’m sitting at an outdoor table of a cafe in rochester, ny. i’m holding a copy of my first book, standing it up on the table. i’m wearing black glasses, a red floral jacket over a white shirt, blue floral shorts, & gold sneakers
May 2, 2025 at 5:31 PM
chenchenwrites.bsky.social
i’ve got a new poem in Passengers Journal!

this one’s about how while i wasn’t raised religious, a certain conservative type of american christianity (& american homophobia) entered my life early on, even in a (supposedly) progressive college town in western mass.

also, Staryu 💫
Quintessence: A Kid in Late 90s Western Mass   5th grade Chen, you were so in love with Pokémon trading cards because Brian G. talked every recess about them, about that rarest of Staryu, the one   with the ink spot printing error, the one on sale on eBay for just under $700. Why didn’t you have a job yet, Chen in the 5th grade   at Wildwood Elementary? Why couldn’t you work at UMass, where your parents were studying, or at Herrell’s, where the ice cream was stunning? You knew   all about ice cream, so why not? You asked your parents, who said you were too little, focus on your studies. But what you focused on was God, the one   you weren’t even raised with, couldn’t quite believe in, but overheard your classmates & especially their parents beg or thank over & over— Please God, they whispered,   Thank God, they shouted, eyes occasionally darting upward to where He must’ve lived in His luxury sky condo. God, you said, fuck you for not letting me have a job, I need to buy Brian G. that Staryu card, fuck, you don’t even exist, but if you      do, help me get Brian that super rare Staryu with the ink spot      printing error.        O 5th grade pottymouth of a prayer. O eldest son who spent night      after night kneeling like the TV people you’d seen, hands clasped & whispering      so loud for Brian,        who one school morning brightly said, Awesome shirt, pointing at      your one Ash & Pikachu shirt, pointing      at you. You prayed        for him to get everything he wanted. Some nights      you prayed for him to get a bit less awesome, to glow a little less      totally. You prayed        to get something right for once, for your parents, who you knew      could never know that you had (you realized) what everyone      at recess & on the bus        called a crush. Except yours was not sweet, not silly      but sin—somehow in 5th grade, in an agnostic at best house, in a hippie-      ish set of towns famous for their poets, you knew this. & if any of them found out—found you out—      well, you just had to pray your fucking heart out that they didn’t.      But in case they did,        in case your mother & your father, you sunk even deeper      into your kneeling, you held your hands together      1000x harder,        you prayed to someone far above God,      some Star infinitely more powerful & handsome      that they wouldn’t believe it.
April 20, 2025 at 10:33 PM
chenchenwrites.bsky.social
this was a pretty display—thanks to poetry society of america last night in brooklyn
my second book next to Brenda Hillman’s new book on a table along with poetry society of america t-shirts and a Lorine Niedecker poem on the wall
April 18, 2025 at 9:18 PM
chenchenwrites.bsky.social
so happy to be at the food place, the place where the food
i’m sitting at a table in chubby cattle, a japanese bbq restaurant in los angeles. i’m pointing my index fingers in the air with a giddiness never before witnessed. i’m wearing black glasses & a green jacket over a purple & white sweater vest
April 18, 2025 at 6:33 PM
chenchenwrites.bsky.social
how to beautify a podium
i’m standing in an event space next to a podium at SUNY Geneseo. i’m holding a small jar of yellow flowers & i’m wearing black glasses, a pink & orange cardigan with large strawberry pattern, a white shirt, & jeans
April 12, 2025 at 2:04 AM
chenchenwrites.bsky.social
mr. giles must rest
mr. giles the pug in bed with his chin resting on his friend the stuffed turtle
April 11, 2025 at 1:43 AM