Cavanaugh Reading Series Features Poet

Poet Chen Chen will deliver a lecture during St. John Fisher College’s Fall 2019 Cavanaugh Reading Series. Sponsored by the English Department, the event is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 24, in Wilson Formal Lounge, and is free and open to the public.

Chen is the author of When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities, which was longlisted for the National Book Award and won the A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize, the GLCA New Writers Award, and the Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry. The collection was also a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry and named one of the best of 2017 by The Brooklyn Rail, Entropy, Library Journal, and others.

His work has appeared in many publications, including Poetry, Tin House, Poem-a-Day, The Best American Poetry, Bettering American Poetry, and The Best American Nonrequired Reading. He is the 2018-2020 Jacob Ziskind Poet-in-Residence at Brandeis University.

Chen earned his MFA from Syracuse University and is pursuing a doctoral degree in English and creative writing as an off-site Texas Tech University student. He lives in Rochester, New York, with his partner, Jeff Gilbert.