Reviews with content warning for Sexual content - When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities

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

5 reviews

nicoleisalwaysreading's review

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*teary smiley emoji*

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robinks's review

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emotional funny reflective sad slow-paced

5.0

I stumbled upon this collection and was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I definitely snorted with laughter at certain lines and reread to further ponder other ones. Skip the Foreword; I would’ve preferred it as an Afterword because it pulls lines from a few of the poems to comment on them. The poems I loved (as they appear in the collection):
- In the Hospital
- Summer Was Forever
- Self-Portrait With & Without
- Please take off your shoes before entering do not disturb
- To the Guanacos at the Syracuse Zoo
- Elegy for My Sadness
- Antarctica
- Second Thoughts on a Winter Afternoon
- If I should die tomorrow, please note that I will miss the particular
- Sorrow Song with Optimus Prime
- In This Economy
- When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities
- For I Will Consider My Boyfriend Jeffrey
- Little Song
-Poplar Street

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noblekylie's review

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adventurous funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

5.0

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jazhandz's review against another edition

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4.25

Whimsical and clever and deeply heartfelt.

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bluejayreads's review

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emotional reflective sad

4.0

In one of the poems in this collection, Chen Chen responds to a friend saying that all his poems are about being Asian and gay. The friend was correct - these poems are about being gay, Asian, or gay and Asian. But that is not a bad thing. Poems are about feelings, and these poems are full of feelings.

Chen writes about the racism he and his family encounter for being not white in America. He writes about being an immigrant whose parents long for another country that they left when he was too young to remember. He writes about crushes on white boys who don't notice him and the rough joy of loving another man. He writes about the many ways he disappoints his mother and how his parents reacted when he told them he was gay.

These poems are sometimes crass and crude, but it adds a hollow realness to the feelings, like the world is determined to hollow him out but somehow he's still here, still writing, still gay and Asian and putting pen to paper to give words to everything trying to scoop the life out of him. This collection of poetry is very different from poetry I've read before, more harsh and brutal than elegant and beautiful, but the emotions were vivid and clear, and that is what poetry should be.

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