Chen Chen

Poem of the Week, by Chen Chen

Posted on by alisonmcghee

This summer, July 17-19, I’m offering a mini-session of our popular Write Together sessions, in which we gather on Zoom for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening and write quietly together from a guided prompt. Cost: $100. Please click here for all the details. I’d love to see you in the Zoom room.

At some point in their early teens, my daughters and I began playing a game I thought of as the Sure game, in which the answer to every question was Sure. Can we go on a road trip this summer? Sure. Can we have ice cream every day? Sure. Can we drive a car that flies? Sure. Can I fly the car? Sure. Can we float around the sky as long as we want? Sure.

The Sure game was the most soothing game in the world. It had a calming effect on all of us. Sure was the answer to everything, and nothing was hard and everything was easy.

i love you to the moon &
– by Chen Chen

not back, let’s not come back, let’s go by the speed of 
queer zest & stay up 
there & get ourselves a little 
moon cottage (so pretty), then start a moon garden 

with lots of moon veggies (so healthy), i mean 
i was already moonlighting 
as an online moonologist 
most weekends, so this is the immensely 

logical next step, are you 
packing your bags yet, don’t forget your 
sailor moon jean jacket, let’s wear 
our sailor moon jean jackets while twirling in that lighter, 

queerer moon gravity, let’s love each other 
(so good) on the moon, let’s love 
the moon        
on the moon

Click here for more information about Chen Chen. This poem was first published in Poem-a-Day in May, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets.

alisonmcghee.com
My podcast: Words by Winter

Poem of the Week, by Chen Chen

Posted on by alisonmcghee

My poems podcast, Words by Winter, can be found here.

This gorgeous poem goes out to all the gay men –my love and thanks for the boundless comfort and acceptance and laughter and love you have given me my entire adult life–and gay women and gay children and teens I’ve loved in my life, and lo, there are so many.

To my family and everyone in it, gay and straight and trans and bi and anything else that might come along. To all the beautiful men in drag I admired in the women’s room at Man Ray back in the day. To all of you we lost to the plague.

To saying no to people who tell you you’re a no. To everyone who stands up for others, known or not. Most of all, to the absolute joy of being exactly who you are in the midst of people who love you for exactly that.

Summer, by Chen Chen

You are the ice cream sandwich connoisseur of your generation.

Blessed are your floral shorteralls, your deeply pink fanny pack with travel-size lint roller just in case.

Level of splendiferous in your outfit: 200.

Types of invisible pain stemming from adolescent disasters in classrooms, locker rooms, & quite often Toyota Camrys: at least 10,000.

You are not a jigglypuff, not yet a wigglytuff.

Reporters & fathers call your generation “the worst.”

Which really means “queer kids who could go online & learn that queer doesn’t have to mean disaster.”

Or dead.

Instead, queer means, splendiferously, you.

& you means someone who knows that common flavors for ice cream sandwiches in Singapore include red bean, yam, & honeydew.

Your powers are great, are growing.

One day you will create an online personality quiz that also freshens the breath.

The next day you will tell your father, You were wrong to say that I had to change.

To make me promise I would. To make me promise.

& promise.

For more information on Chen Chen, please check out their website.

alisonmcghee.com