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Explodingly Yours
48 pages, Paperback
Published January 13, 2023
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285 people want to read
About the author
Chen Chen
34 books151 followersChen Chen is the author of two books of poetry, Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency (2022) and When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities (2017), both published by BOA Editions and by Bloodaxe Books in the UK. His latest chapbook is Explodingly Yours (Ghost City Press, 2023). A Kundiman community member, his honors include the Thom Gunn Award, two Pushcart Prizes, the National Book Award longlist, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and United States Artists. His work appears in many publications, including three editions of The Best American Poetry and two editions of The Forward Book of Poetry. He teaches for the l0w-residency MFA programs at New England College, Stonecoast, and Antioch. He edits the online poetry journals, Underblong and the lickety~split. He holds an MFA from Syracuse University and a PhD from Texas Tech University. He lives in Rochester, NY with his partner, Jeff Gilbert, and their pug, Mr. Rupert Giles.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
October 26, 2024
The voice of early love abounds here. From the first poem "A Queer Translates the Night Sky"
The writer talks of the moon and constellations...
are a filthy god's manifesto, demanding an exponential increase of butt stuff in the fields.
I love moonlit skies where love was made. And looking up at stars. Isn't this how it feels - like these nights were MADE for this activity?!
More early love from the poem "First Love"
after some fun sex, they order pizza, and when asking for toppings...
he asked softly, shyly, what I wanted to ask him - How long can you stay?
Wow - what a beautiful last line in this poem.
The poem "I Dream on a Crowded Train with My Eyes Open, Body Swaying" is a miniature tale on a single page. These early lovers met for a drink at the cafe. Kissed in the park. Then reminisced about kissing, on that train ride home.
I'm dreaming, yes, on the train ride home, that our kiss, the last before we parted, has yet to end, not entirely -
that I'm carrying the coffee-flavored ghost of that kiss on my lips, my tongue, while on your train, you're carrying it, too.
Let's say it takes all night for us to get home, the train having to make every stop,
&everyone forgetting to step off the first, even second times,
So there's all this looping back &n back,
While we're still kissing that kiss, that green, & June
Intense! Remember those first kisses with someone? How you had this feeling that it was still happening?
"Romcum" is a fun ramble about having some sex in NY City.
"My boyfriend & I have a crush" is a poem only true-love couples can share. When you both have a crush on the same guy that posts videos, and you can talk about it.
that moment, we were once again drooling, dreaming together,
& didn't Hemingway say all you have to do is write one true sentence, the truest?
I love the simple recognition of how well this couple gets along to openly talk about this fun crush.
The theme of this poetry collection is bound in "The School of Eternities".
The writer is remembering all the little things these lovers did together.
- The Snapple kiss-sound as the lid opened...
- When they debated whether raining cats and dogs was a pure 50/50 cats/dogs...
- Moved their first box of books and then more books together up those three flights...
- The simple kiss prior to driving the car together
I remember. Your hand, the lid, your hands, the steering wheel, your lips, your lips. The way you took a sip, gave me a kiss, before starting to drive.
It is these small magical things that couples enjoy that only they appreciate together in their own private way.
remember how I signed the letter 'explodingly yours'
A serious favorite for me:
"A Beautiful Day" where this couple in love doing routine house stuff...
Ugh we're so good at folding T-shirts. You, me,
all our opinions about the ending of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,
Folding laundry like pros.
They discuss breakfast, and how they love each other regardless of sneezing or stepping in dog poop.
Then...
you've taken over folding a set of navy briefs, my briefs.
Too slow, you say. & you're right, you're much faster, you're nearly done.
Then you stop. You hold up the last pair to your face.
Nostrils. You breathe in long, deep, deeper. Then say, Good.
Though I know really good would be right after the gym.
But you keep sniffing, ugh, savoring, ugh, let me remember this, your bliss-face, your dirty smiling into my clean briefs,
You saying, insisting, I can still smell you - & I don't care if it's just your head
telling your nose that I'm there, I don't care, today is beautiful,
the day is so beautiful
it's almost as beautiful
as us.
The writer talks of the moon and constellations...
are a filthy god's manifesto, demanding an exponential increase of butt stuff in the fields.
I love moonlit skies where love was made. And looking up at stars. Isn't this how it feels - like these nights were MADE for this activity?!
More early love from the poem "First Love"
after some fun sex, they order pizza, and when asking for toppings...
he asked softly, shyly, what I wanted to ask him - How long can you stay?
Wow - what a beautiful last line in this poem.
The poem "I Dream on a Crowded Train with My Eyes Open, Body Swaying" is a miniature tale on a single page. These early lovers met for a drink at the cafe. Kissed in the park. Then reminisced about kissing, on that train ride home.
I'm dreaming, yes, on the train ride home, that our kiss, the last before we parted, has yet to end, not entirely -
that I'm carrying the coffee-flavored ghost of that kiss on my lips, my tongue, while on your train, you're carrying it, too.
Let's say it takes all night for us to get home, the train having to make every stop,
&everyone forgetting to step off the first, even second times,
So there's all this looping back &n back,
While we're still kissing that kiss, that green, & June
Intense! Remember those first kisses with someone? How you had this feeling that it was still happening?
"Romcum" is a fun ramble about having some sex in NY City.
"My boyfriend & I have a crush" is a poem only true-love couples can share. When you both have a crush on the same guy that posts videos, and you can talk about it.
that moment, we were once again drooling, dreaming together,
& didn't Hemingway say all you have to do is write one true sentence, the truest?
I love the simple recognition of how well this couple gets along to openly talk about this fun crush.
The theme of this poetry collection is bound in "The School of Eternities".
The writer is remembering all the little things these lovers did together.
- The Snapple kiss-sound as the lid opened...
- When they debated whether raining cats and dogs was a pure 50/50 cats/dogs...
- Moved their first box of books and then more books together up those three flights...
- The simple kiss prior to driving the car together
I remember. Your hand, the lid, your hands, the steering wheel, your lips, your lips. The way you took a sip, gave me a kiss, before starting to drive.
It is these small magical things that couples enjoy that only they appreciate together in their own private way.
remember how I signed the letter 'explodingly yours'
A serious favorite for me:
"A Beautiful Day" where this couple in love doing routine house stuff...
Ugh we're so good at folding T-shirts. You, me,
all our opinions about the ending of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,
Folding laundry like pros.
They discuss breakfast, and how they love each other regardless of sneezing or stepping in dog poop.
Then...
you've taken over folding a set of navy briefs, my briefs.
Too slow, you say. & you're right, you're much faster, you're nearly done.
Then you stop. You hold up the last pair to your face.
Nostrils. You breathe in long, deep, deeper. Then say, Good.
Though I know really good would be right after the gym.
But you keep sniffing, ugh, savoring, ugh, let me remember this, your bliss-face, your dirty smiling into my clean briefs,
You saying, insisting, I can still smell you - & I don't care if it's just your head
telling your nose that I'm there, I don't care, today is beautiful,
the day is so beautiful
it's almost as beautiful
as us.
February 10, 2023
Chen Chen is one of my very favourites, and I love that he surprises us with chapbooks in between his larger collections. These poems are infinitely rereadable. I must have read "Hot Tips on How to Disappoint Your Grief" ten times this week. They give me joy, they titillate, they make me laugh, and they comfort.
"*The world is beautiful* is always
an exaggeration. But it's the heart's favorite sentence.
Favorite demand." --Chen Chen
"*The world is beautiful* is always
an exaggeration. But it's the heart's favorite sentence.
Favorite demand." --Chen Chen
February 3, 2024
...is memory the best
eternity we can make?
The only?
2024 reread: Glad I re-read this this year, I love the episodic queerness of these poems.
eternity we can make?
The only?
2024 reread: Glad I re-read this this year, I love the episodic queerness of these poems.
Read
February 10, 2023I will read everything this splendiferous poet writes. My queer heart!
February 25, 2023
Rapturous and defiant. A balm for the soul.
April 3, 2024
enjoyed!!
Read
May 1, 2023chen chen is so good and fun. he has this wryness in him, this levity and cuteness that feels both so familiar (in that cutting, our options are levity or sadness/rage way) and so original at the same time. also the love poems, the domestic love poems with a longterm partner, are just so sweet and also so /specific/. that intimacy of specificity does get me every time. one of my fav poems was definitely the one about you and yr boyfriend both thirsting after this random internet man who posts thirst traps with a cockatiel.
the keystone of this collection is "the school of eternities", which has -- and is about -- that timeless specificity i mentioned above. it's really cool how much joy and bittersweetness is captured in being so happy you don't want to lose a thing and are willing in poetry for these happinesses - highly specific, almost fleeting in their own specificity (in a car, about to open a snapple bottle, opening a snapple bottle ...) -- to be suspended in time forever. it's so smart and so sweet.
excited to read the "A-sides", as this is just the b-sides to "Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency" !!
the keystone of this collection is "the school of eternities", which has -- and is about -- that timeless specificity i mentioned above. it's really cool how much joy and bittersweetness is captured in being so happy you don't want to lose a thing and are willing in poetry for these happinesses - highly specific, almost fleeting in their own specificity (in a car, about to open a snapple bottle, opening a snapple bottle ...) -- to be suspended in time forever. it's so smart and so sweet.
excited to read the "A-sides", as this is just the b-sides to "Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency" !!
December 26, 2023
These poems have been described by the author as sort of B sides of the full length collection “Your Energency Contact. . . ” , but, apart from the fact that they are more unabashedly queer-sexy and more ebulliently leaning in to the joy of being in love and living in the present moment, these poems don’t appear to be the B side of anything. They are carefully crafted poems that, even when they are having lots of fun, are doing serious work both thematically and poetically, presenting the softer and more loving side of queer relationships in their private moments and in rebelling against some of the conventions of serious poetry. I enjoyed seeing how one of my favorite poems “The School of Eternities,” which appears in the full-length collection as well, shines in this context where the value of living fully within time is on full display. This was a fun and beautiful and mood-altering book to end my month of Sealey reading on!
July 6, 2023
“Let’s say it takes all night
for us to get home, the train having to make
every stop, & everyone forgetting to step off
the first,
even second times,
so there’s all this looping back
& back, while we’re still kissing that kiss, that green,
& June”
- from “I Dream on a Crowded Train with My Eyes Open, Body Swaying”
for us to get home, the train having to make
every stop, & everyone forgetting to step off
the first,
even second times,
so there’s all this looping back
& back, while we’re still kissing that kiss, that green,
& June”
- from “I Dream on a Crowded Train with My Eyes Open, Body Swaying”
February 11, 2023
Another masterpiece by Chen Chen!
January 10, 2024
“You laugh & it occurs to me that laughter never grows old. Even the sun grows, the light. But not laughter, not yours.”
February 26, 2024
Felt no joy in reading these poems (as semi-promised on the back)
But on a serious note, this wasn’t the crunchiness/slurpiness that makes poetry enjoyable for me
But on a serious note, this wasn’t the crunchiness/slurpiness that makes poetry enjoyable for me
November 8, 2024
ok fine it was healing
poems I loved most
Early Summer, Late Morning
The School of Eternities
A Queer Translates Himself
Big Mug
poems I loved most
Early Summer, Late Morning
The School of Eternities
A Queer Translates Himself
Big Mug
December 29, 2024
A bit slight relative Chen Chen's other collections, but the central poem here gets 6 stars on a scale of 5. Just an absolute knockout.
May 14, 2023
While packing for a much-overdue vacation, my mind journeys to Explodingly Yours, a chapbook by Chen Chen from Ghost City Press that I devoured the past two nights. “A Beautiful Day” looms fresh in my brain as my beloved and I gather over heaps of clean laundry. I remember the speaker and the you “folding laundry like pros.” And, as we stuff duffel bags with clothes, I recall the sweetnesses: “& the bed forgives us our stack after stack of clothes & our // bedroom smells of Tide & June & you’ve / taken over folding a set of navy briefs, my briefs.” I smile, curious if my brain will always venture to the heartwarming love poem near my dearest’s washed clothes. I hope so.
from “Reading Poetry and Only Poetry for a Week” via BOOK RIOT: https://bookriot.com/reading-only-poe...
from “Reading Poetry and Only Poetry for a Week” via BOOK RIOT: https://bookriot.com/reading-only-poe...
February 6, 2025
Stunning work, some of Chen's best.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews