Chen Chen

Chen Chen was born in Xiamen, China and grew up in Massachusetts. He is the author of When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities (BOA Editions, 2017), which was longlisted for the National Book Award and won the Thom Gunn Award, among other honors. In 2019 Bloodaxe Books published the UK edition. Chen is also the author of four chapbooks, most recently GESUNDHEIT! (with Sam Herschel Wein and out from Glass Poetry Press). His work appears or is forthcoming in many publications, including Poetry, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, Ploughshares, Poem-a-Day, and three editions of The Best American Poetry (2015, 2019, and 2021). 

He has received a Pushcart Prize and fellowships from Kundiman and the National Endowment for the Arts. His writing has been highlighted on NPR, the PBS NewsHour, Buzzfeed, Poetry Unbound, The Slowdown podcast, and many other outlets. He has shared his writing and taught poetry workshops all across the U.S. and in the UK and Aotearoa / New Zealand. Currently, he is at work on another chapbook, a book of craft/personal essays, and a second full-length poetry collection entitled Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency. 

He is co-founder and co-editor-in-chief of the online poetry journal, Underblong. Chen lives with his partner, Jeff Gilbert and their pug, Mr. Rupert Giles.