Online reading + conversation with Monica Youn, R.A. Villanueva, & Ethan Yu.
Co-sponsored by the English Department at the City University of Hong Kong, Asian American Writers Workshop, & Outspoken Press.
“My Life Has Gotten So Busy: A Workshop on Titles.” More info to come.
Reading + a short generative workshop for Gather, an online writing group in Canada hosted by Maria Giesbrecht.
THE CONTEMPORARY LOVE POEM
Are you nervous to write love poetry because you think it’s going to sound cheesy and sentimental? Or are you enthusiastic about writing it but unsure how to make it fresh and exciting? In this generative class we’ll discuss and practice a range of approaches to the love poem—or the poem that talks about love. Such a poem doesn’t have to be about falling in or being in love. And a love poem can also be a political poem. We’ll read work by Jessica Abughattas, Natalie Diaz, Jericho Brown, Diane Seuss, and others, as models for how we might experiment with and love the love poem anew. Participants can expect to draft at least three new pieces.
Official description: the Brookline Poetry Series is an independent monthly venue housed at the Brookline Public Library Main Branch. In recent years we have hosted poets such as Alan Shapiro, Stephanie Burt, Vievee Francis, Daisy Fried, Major Jackson, Dorianne Laux, Matthew Olzmann, Patricia Smith, and Jane Wong.
We meet the third Sunday of the month, September through May, from 2-4 p.m. Readings in September-November and March-May are in-person; readings in December-February are on Zoom. The afternoon starts with our invited readers. An open mike closes the event, where some of the best up-and-coming lyric and narrative poets in Boston present their work. We draw a regular audience of 30-50 people, and poets often tell us that we have one of the most attentive audiences they have encountered. It's a serious but warm venue, with a strong sense of commitment to the work and to the community we've built. The Boston Globe has called us "the best literary open mike in Boston." The Series directors are Ann Killough, Christine Tierney, Aimée Sands, and Susan Jo Russell.
Hosted by Joy Sullivan.
Rewriting the Family
“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” So goes the famous opening of Anna Karenina—was Tolstoy right? How might we imagine otherwise? Or define family differently? Or queer it? What is family in the 21st century? What does it mean to you? In this generative session, we’ll explore these and other complicated questions by discussing brief readings and attempting a few writing prompts. We’ll consider blood family alongside chosen family, familial memory and grief alongside the dream of new familial constellations. Poems by F. Douglas Brown, Wo Chan, Diana Khoi Nguyen, Victoria Chang, and others will inform our conversations and experiments.
Please come to this session with a favorite (or least favorite!) family photograph, where family could mean chosen family or include animals or however you define it. We’ll use this photograph as a portal into writing.
THE CONTEMPORARY LOVE POEM
Are you nervous to write love poetry because you think it’s going to sound cheesy and sentimental? Or are you enthusiastic about writing it but unsure how to make it fresh and exciting? In this generative class we’ll discuss and practice a range of approaches to the love poem—or the poem that talks about love. Such a poem doesn’t have to be about falling in or being in love. And a love poem can also be a political poem. We’ll read work by Jessica Abughattas, Natalie Diaz, Jericho Brown, Diane Seuss, and others, as models for how we might experiment with and love the love poem anew. Participants can expect to draft at least three new pieces.
Writers on Writing
To take as your subject writers, writing, “the writing world”—is this just annoying? Pretentious? Are there ways to do it well? Perhaps with a healthy dose of humor? In this generative session we’ll discuss and write after an array of examples across genres, including work by Sigrid Nunez, Brenda Shaughnessy, Jhumpa Lahiri, Carl Phillips, and others. We’ll think together about writer as personal vs. cultural identity, the role of the writer today vs. in the past, and the aspirations vs. limitations re: what writing can do politically. I’ll offer some prompts and we’ll experiment, digress, while trying our best not to annoy ourselves. Writers of all genres are welcome.
Conversation with members of the Poetry Club/Literature Club and students enrolled in creative writing classes
Reading + Q&A
Since 1997, Northwestern has hosted this event under the guidance of the English Department; in recent years, sponsorship has grown to include the Art Department and the Library. Our event now encompasses the annual Spring Student Art Show and the public launch of our Mad River Anthology, which has been published annually since the college was founded in 1965. The Anthology includes poetry, prose, and art from our students, faculty, area high school students, and members of our community. Poets selected for inclusion in the Anthology are then invited to read their works during the festival.
I’ll be giving a reading, conducting two poetry workshop sessions, and delivering a craft talk. More info to come.
C5BK 5 Central Avenue, Brooklyn New York. Anna Jeke'l’s exhbit will be up & other activities will be happening through the weekend (Oct. 18-20).
Opening reception on Fri. Oct. 18, 6:00-9:00pm
Food + drink.
Reading by Chen Chen - 7:45pm.
Music by First President of Japan Unplugged - 8:00pm.
I’m So Glad I Moved to New York acknowledges that being happy in the city is not negating a naturalistic past nor a sarcastic impossibility, but embracing the tension of being an animal and an artist.
Join Charlotte Lit faculty for a reading to raise funds for Western NC hurricane recovery! All donations will be sent directly to WNC nonprofits aiding in the recovery effort.
In this talk, we'll question the expectation for creative work to be “universal” by examining how often this term actually refers to/caters to a particular audience and gaze. In place of the universal, I suggest a framework of the communal, one that celebrates difference and listens to (rather than dismisses) anger that demands accountability. Writers and thinkers such as Jennifer Chang, Paul Celan, Sara Ahmed, and Toni Morrison will inform my remarks. Oh, and I'll be discussing a gorgeous, sort of queer movie in the Sailor Moon franchise. There will be time dedicated to drafting a piece that articulates your own artistic and political universe. While my main examples come from poetry, I believe these ideas can apply across genres, so all participants are welcome.
[Zoom session for participants in Ellipsis]
Offsite event in Portland, ME. Official description: Queer writers from Maine and beyond will read their work after hours at Cocktail Mary. Featured writers include Johan Alexander, Chen Chen, Michael Colbert, Melissa Febos, Emily Lowe, Rebecca Turkewitz, and Arisa White.
LaConner, WA. Hosted by the Skagit River Poetry Foundation.
Fri. Oct. 4 -
9:00-9:55am Poetry Sampler with Ellen Bass, Elizabeth Bradfield, Chen Chen, & Ilya Kaminsky
2:30-3:45pm Poetry Sampler with Chen Chen, Tony Curtis, & Tawanda Mulalu
Sat. Oct. 5
1:45 - 3:00pm Gender Identity panel with Ellen Bass
3:30-4:45 Poetry Sampler with Elizabeth Bradfield, Chen Chen, Rio Cortez, & Samuel Green
Sun. Sept. 22 - 10:00am: I’ll be reading and in conversation with fiction writer Santiago Jose Sanchez.
Official description:
Self and Otherness: Queer Life in Poetry and Prose
Poet Chen Chen, author of Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency and Santiago Jose Sanchez, author of the new novel Hombrecito, compare poetry and fiction, queer life as people of color in the U.S., love, art and the whole ball of wax.
Hour-long visit on Zoom: short reading + extended Q&A with students.
Poets House in New York City. 6:00pm. Reading and in conversation with Weijia Pan, whose debut collection, Motherlands, will be out from Milkweed Editions.
Visit to an online poetry class led by Nina Ballerstedt & Callista Pitman. Reading + extended Q&A with the students.
Inspired by recent discourse on the complexities of friendship, this multi-genre generative workshop explores a variety of approaches to writing about/from friendship. We’ll start by discussing Mary Ruefle’s Pushcart Prize-winning essay “Dear Friends” before diving into friendship-focused work by a range of poets and writers. Each day you will be provided prompts and exercises, and participants can expect to generate at least five drafts over the week. We’ll think about what friendship means in an era of friending and following, of political upheavals and generational divides as well as intersections. Writers of all genres are welcome to this gathering of texts, questions, and—one hopes—friends.
I’m honored to be poetry faculty at this year’s retreat. I’ll be teaching a revision-oriented peer feedback workshop, giving a craft talk (“On Becoming a Pop Star, I mean, a Poet”), and participating in the faculty reading.
As poetry faculty for this MFA program, I’ll be teaching two peer feedback sessions, one generative session, and I’ll be reading as part of the faculty reading series. I’ll also be meeting with mentees, participating in a professional development panel, and attending student readings, graduating student lectures, and fellow faculty’s sessions.
I’ll be doing an extended Q&A with students on the Eastern Kentucky University campus and then giving a reading on the Berea College campus.
I’ll be teaching in the second half of this MFA residency: a three-day workshop focused on social justice poetry & nonfiction as well as a generative session on writing about family. I’ll also be giving a reading as part of the faculty reading series. And I’ll be meeting with mentees and attending student and fellow faculty events.
NAWP (Not at AWP) presents a Pride Celebration reading. Hosted by Adrian Dallas Frandle & Nicole Tallman. I’ll be reading with Carling McManus.
Highland Park - Rochester, NY. Part of a three-night festival. I’ll be reading with Jessica Cuello.
More info + gift economy tickets (FREE - $20)
Monthlong writing residency in Portland, OR. Hosted by Portland Community College.
Paterson, NJ.
Generative workshop - 10:00am - 12:00pm
Reading (with another writer TBA) - 1:00pm
Virtual event hosted by the Philomathean Society, a student-led literary society at the University of Pennsylvania.
“I had a friend who…”: Writing Friendship with Chen Chen (via Zoom)
Inspired by recent cultural discourse on the complex power of friendship, this multi-genre generative workshop explores a variety of approaches to writing about/from friendship. We’ll start with a discussion of Mary Ruefle’s Pushcart Prize-winning essay “Dear Friends” (one of her best, most moving prose pieces, I think) before taking a look at a handful of friendship-focused piece by a range of poets and writers as potential models for our own writing. I’ll provide some writing prompts, including one that involves texts/DMs/emails with friends. We’ll think about what friendship means in a contemporary era of friending and following, subscribing and subtweeting, a global pandemic and generational divides as well as intersections. How do we make friends today? How do we maintain friendships? How do we, when needed, “break up” with friends in ways that don’t sound like a memo from HR? These deeply personal questions, among others (including the more craft-related ones!), will drive this session, this gathering of texts and— one can hope—friends.
Second set of readings and class visits at colleges and universities across Georgia.
Tues. Apr. 9: Valdosta University
Weds. Apr. 10: Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College
Thurs. Apr. 11: Georgia Southern University
Fri. Apr. 12: Savannah State University
Brandeis University’s Rose Art Museum. Co-sponsored by the creative writing program.
Anthony DiPietro, Deputy Director of the Rose Art Museum, will be launching his debut poetry collection, kiss & release (Unsolicited Press). I’ll be reading from my work in support.
About the book: You may assume “this is a failed romantic gesture” or else “the best thing that happened to sex/since the devil invented it.” If a poetry book could sleep around, get divorced, and fall in love with a hookup, that book would be kiss & release. If a book could kill a snake to revive a dead lover, this one would. This book parties, hollers (and whispers) at hotties, and craves escape: “I will invent a way.” If you’ve ever been bored during group sex, this book’s for you. Do not read while driving: the book’s already driving too fast, singing loudly, and using Siri to reply to fuckboys.
Civic Pavilion in Boston. Hosted by Porsha Olayiwola, Poet Laureate of the City of Boston.
Open mic, then featured reading.
I’ll be reading at 7:30pm.
Reading with Jason Koo. Q&A and book signing to follow readings. Hosted by Cate Marvin.
We are fortunate to be hosting two exceptional poets, Chen Chen and Jason Koo, next Tuesday, Apr. 2 at the Center for the Arts Building 1P) Lecture Hall (Room 119) from 2:30pm to 3:30pm to launch National Poetry Month.
Join us for some great poems and great people, along with pizza and wraps.
This CLUE event is sponsored by LOST IN THOUGHT, CSI’s creative arts magazine.
By the Division of Academic Affairs
Friday, March 22, 11:30 AM—12:45 PM
SAS Writer's Craft
QUEERING THE LOVE POEM with CHEN CHEN
Though perhaps the love poem has long been queer (think of Shakespeare’s sonnets and Sappho’s fragments), in this generative session we’ll discuss contemporary examples that further (or differently) queer and complicate the love poem—and indeed, love itself. How can a love poem also be a political poem? A protest poem? Or a political poem for how it reimagines relationships of all kinds? A queer love poem may be about a speaker and a beloved (or beloveds), but it may also be about friendship, community, family both blood and chosen, self-love, caring for the planet, and speaking back to the social systems that limit agency, that attempt to erase queerness. We’ll read work by Essex Hemphill, Natalie Diaz, Jericho Brown, Charif Shanahan, Muriel Leung, Justin Chin, F. Douglas Brown, Yanyi, and others as models for our own writing from and into queerer forms of love.
Hotel Monteleone, Lobby Level, Royal B
Included in SAS Weekend Registration or $25
*
Saturday, March 23, 11:30 AM—12:45 PM
Literary Discussion
THE PROFANE AND SACRED/POETRY
This discussion explores ruptures and raptures that occur when poets run headlong into gods and religions in their writing. In no small part a rejection of what “the canon” has historically held sacred, these writers talk about what it means to create space for foreign bodies, subversive thoughts, and transgressive actions on the literary (mine)field. How do we say the unsayable? When our cultures, histories, lived experiences, and in fact the bodies we inhabit are rendered other or less than or profane, how do we elevate them, how do we make space for them in the world? How do we hold holy (however we define that word) what we've been told to forget, to bury? These authors reflect on what it means to manifest our deepest selves in our writing, even when—especially when—our most sacred selves are selves that the world wants to look away from.
Panelists: Jubi Ariolla-Headley, Stephanie Burt, Chen Chen, Erin Hoover, and Ed Madden
Moderator: Brad Richard
Hotel Monteleone, Lobby Level, Royal C
*
Sunday, March 24, 11:30 AM—12:45 PM
Reading Series
SAINTS AND SINNERS: WRITERS READ
Sponsored by the John Burton Harter Foundation
Take the rare opportunity to hear authors in their own voice. This highlighted Festival event has authors share their vivid imaginations with their new creations, or revisiting a past work that holds special meaning. Please join us in welcoming: Stephanie Burt, Chen Chen, Lucian Childs, AE Hines, Rose Norman, Ed Madden, and T.Q. Sims for this year’s mix of established and exciting new writers.
Hotel Monteleone, Lobby Level, Royal D
Sunday, March 24, 7pm
QUEER AF OFFSITE
Hosted by LMNL Arts
Come listen to work by Chen Chen, Kazim Ali, Ching-In Chen, Meghan Sullivan, Daniel Meltz, T.Q. Sims, Kay Murphy, Nayelly Barrios, A.E. Hines, & Charlie J. Stephens.
@ The Domino
Dallas, TX.
Mon. Mar. 18, 1:20-2:20pm CST - “New & Selected: Poets on Formal Innovation & Inheritance”: Roundtable discussion, Mag Gabbert, Tarfia Faizullah, and Chen Chen. All events, unless otherwise noted, will be held in Bridwell Library’s Methodist Collection Reading Room (Blue Room).
Tues. Mar. 19, 6:30pm CST - Group poetry reading: Participants will include Stephanie Burt, Maureen McLane, Evie Shockley, Mag Gabbert, Katie Condon, Samyak Shertok, Chen Chen, and Tarfia Faizullah. Deejay: Kendra Allen. Hosted by the Southwest Review in the Club Room at Ozona Grill (4615 Greenville Ave).
The SMU Symposium on Poetic Form will gather scholars and poets on the SMU campus for two full days to discuss poetic form in practice and theory. Panels will consider topics such as Renaissance, eighteenth-century, and nineteenth-century poetics, hip hop, the sonnet, “uncreative writing,” and prosody. The Historical Poetics Reading Group will conduct a discussion of Francis Barton Gummere’s The Beginnings of Poetry. Jericho Brown, winner of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, will give a reading and join Virginia Jackson in a conversation about poetry.
Reception from 6:00 to 7:00pm.
7:00-8:30pm: poetry reading, followed by brief intermission, then a 30- to 40-minute poetry workshop / reading as part of The Wordsmiths.
Hosted by Sine Theta Magazine, Red Bean Poetry, & CUHK English. Join Chen Chen, Minying Huang, Yanyi, & Jiaqi Kang (moderator) to discuss the labor that keeps poetry going, labor as a theme & more.
[Note: I’ll be joining at 3:30pm EST due to a prior commitment.]