" What if, you said, I bodybuilt so good, so Arnold, to the point of the world turning totally unhomophobic? "

Chen Chen@chenchenwrites.bsky.social · yesterday

Honored to have a new poem, “An Evening Discussion” in Poem-a-Day. This one’s about homophobia, societal and internalized, and different methods of responding. Also, pimples & Planet Fitness. Also, tenderness. Read without swiping + hear me read it: poets.org/poem/evening...

sitting with this one for a bit 😮‍💨

Chen Chen@chenchenwrites.bsky.social · yesterday

Honored to have a new poem, “An Evening Discussion” in Poem-a-Day. This one’s about homophobia, societal and internalized, and different methods of responding. Also, pimples & Planet Fitness. Also, tenderness. Read without swiping + hear me read it: poets.org/poem/evening...

Honored to have a new poem, “An Evening Discussion” in Poem-a-Day. This one’s about homophobia, societal and internalized, and different methods of responding. Also, pimples & Planet Fitness. Also, tenderness. Read without swiping + hear me read it: poets.org/poem/evening...

so annoying how completing one task helps you get the energy/mindset/confidence to tackle another, possibly bigger task.

i will never get tired of receiving books in the mail. it is such a treat every time. even if it's a book i end up not enjoying. to receive it! a pure thrill!

you might think that regularly receiving advance copies of books would make me buy fewer books but hehe! no no! more more!

You have left me with a cathedral of trees and no church to speak of. —Jennifer Militello, from "The Conductor's Last Call Before Leaving"

something that can be so important is the sharpness of one’s cheddar

The beauty of the world, Simone Weil wrote, is the mouth of a labyrinth. Find me there. —Derrick Austin, from "Self-Portraits"

just misread "unfathomable pressure" in a poem as "unfathomable pleasure." and maybe the two are the same, ultimately

(dear father you always were a bore but I loved you more than interesting things and in your honor I’ve felt the same about myself and everyone I’ve ever met) —Mary Ruefle, from "White Buttons"

highly recommend visiting a used bookstore as often as you can for your mental and aesthetic and spiritual pleasure

what do your poems contain? what do they not contain? what can their stomachs digest? where must they swim? how do they cry?

amazing how before you can read anything on any website now you have to close an ad, an accept or decline cookies, a subscription ask, another ad, a this is your last article even though it's your first so you really should subscribe

there is a winter coat i am so excited to wear and i'm getting annoyed that winter is still far away

let the poem draft (or revision) be smarter and weirder than your big ideas for it

are you a poem boy, a book f*ggot, or shrimply poetry?

last night at dinner. we were looking forward to eating. then we remembered. we all took the lettuce out of our meals, put it on this extra dish. there was more lettuce than anticipated. it was a solemn moment. a time of reflection & revulsion. we stared at the green mass through the evening.

i go to poems not for morals or lessons or Knowledge—i go to poems for music and pleasure, texture and disturbance, lust and color, risk and provocation, tenderness and jokes, questions and rage, dream and gorgeousness, love and hate, love and what is it, what’s that

happy Nolan’s The Odyssey release day for all who celebrate. here’s my favorite Odyssey-related contemporary poem, “Telemachus’ Detachment” by Louise Glück.

to be serious about art is to maintain an open and playful heart

when (and why) did everyone start saying “my person,” like “i’ve found my person”

i don’t understand the desire to get married and the desire to write a novel. i’m not against commitment or i guess duration. i just dislike these two things as institutions and as normative aspirations. like to be a “real” couple or “real” writer.

everything is romantic and everyone is annoying.

so strange when a straight person tries to tell me of their world……. a world increasingly distant and foreign to me….. like what do you mean….. husband and wife….. like what does that even mean….. a husband and a wife….. the husband and the wife…..

Most of our childhood is stored not in photos, but in certain biscuits, lights of day, smells, textures of carpet. —Alain de Botton

thinking about the musicality of a gay sigh

poetry has been declared dead so many times, but so long as there are still people reading for meaning—and music!—as opposed to mere information, i will continue. and honestly, i would continue to read and write poetry anyway, out of just my own personal hunger.

So…I have a poem out today: sillygoosepress.com/silly-summer... It’s after @chenchenwrites.bsky.social, whose collection “Your Emergency Contact has Experienced an Emergency” resonated so deeply with my lonely queer soul, and companioned me through the times

I can’t sleep with you because you have an incompatible phone charger — SillyGoosePress

after Chen Chen I can’t sleep with you because I don’t have my hairbrush and sharing a brush is different to sharing pillows. I can’t sleep with you because getting to work in the morning would ...

sillygoosepress.com

it is so important in this life to stop and smell the giant candles at costco