#ken chen

[pollen]

Ken Chen, from "You May Visit the Cosmos but You May Not Speak of It (or on the Tackiness of Elegy)."

[antigonick]

THE UNSAYABLE: One of the traditional paradoxes of the dead is how they do not emit information. Because the dead do not emit light, which cannot escape the event horizon of the deceased, they can only be detected by the symptoms they leave on the surrounding matter, the haloed matter burning at their corona, the white marks scarring the X-rays. A person can survive within the dead once it has gravitationally collapsed. This happens for only a second from the observer’s eye, but, because of gravitational time dilation, grief 
occurs a nearly infinitely long time for the person who chooses to live inside the dead.

Ken Chen, excerpt of “You May Visit the Cosmos but You May Not Speak of It”, in Four Quartets

[lifeinpoetry]

Last night my life was so quiet that my feelings were audible. When the phone rang, I thought it was my heart.

— Ken Chen, from “Taipei Novel,” Juvenilia

[poetsandwriters]

“What are questions for? / One can use a question mark for many things. For example: as a sickle for cutting people’s hearts off. / How can you cut someone off with a question? / You know, like when I said, ‘Yeah, but we’re still in love with each other, right?’ and you told me the answer.”

—Ken Chen, from “Yes, No, Yes, the Future, Gone, Happy, Yes, No, Yes, Cut, You” anthologized in Firsts: 100 Years of Yale Younger Poets

[whitneymuseum]

Streaming LIVE on Facebook this Sunday at 7:30 pm: Join us for “Perspectives on Race and Representation: An Evening with the Racial Imaginary Institute.” Taking the debate around Dana Schutz’s painting, Open Casket, as a starting point, the program will look at questions about the ethics of representation and the responsibilities of artists and museums. The Whitney is partnering with Claudia Rankine and the Racial Imaginary Institute to convene this conversation with artists, scholars, and critics to gain their insights into these issues in relation to the 2017 Biennial and our contemporary moment.

There will be contributions from Elizabeth Alexander, Christopher Benson, LeRonn P. Brooks, Ken Chen, Malik Gaines, Lyle Ashton Harris, Terrance Hayes, Ajay Kurian, Christopher Y. Lew, Casey Llewellyn, Mia Locks, Claudia Rankine, Sarah Schulman, Christina Sharpe, and Herb Tam, among others. 

[lifeinpoetry]

My life is not unbearable yet still I must escape it.

— Ken Chen, from Banal Love Songs, Juvenilia

[lifeinpoetry]

When I am alone, I feel penitent, my heart damp like cold metal.

— Ken Chen, from “Taipei Novel,” Juvenilia

[lifeinpoetry]

I am just like my mother. I buy books and tell myself that I am buying wisdom and at the end of my life, I own a house full of books. When I was little, I thought that the water came out of the showerhead because it was crying. This is because I heard my mother crying and thought it was the showerhead

— Ken Chen, “Essay on Crying at Night,” Juvenilia