I ordered this when someone was raving over the author in my fandom twitter. Once I bought it, I realized my friend Heather had recommended it to me YEARS ago. Oops! However it got to me, I LOVED THIS. When I read a poetry collection I take little notes on my favorite poems to make it easier to find them later and I took notes on SO MANY of these poems. But I am going to let one of my favorite excerpts talk for me:

...Trying to get
over what my writer friend said, All you
write about is being gay or Chinese.
Wish I had thought to say to him, All you
write about is being white
or an asshole. Wish I had said, No, I
already write about everything --
& everything is salt, noise, struggle, hair,
carrying, kisses, leaving, myth, popcorn

mothers, bad habits, questions.

So full of joy and seeking and finding and sticking by your own truth. LOVED THIS. ( )

I will admit, some of the poems in this collection were a little too abstract for me. But others were welcomed punches in the gut.

I like a lot of the contradictions Chen uses. They don't always feel like they should make sense, but they do. I really like "Poem in Noisy Mouthfuls".

I would like to check out more of Chen's poetry in the future. ( )

A really lovely and tender collection of poems. Feels young, like spring, in the nicest way.