Reporter's notebook: Poet to bring work to life

PORTALES — Poetry comes alive in a live setting, and Portales will soon have opportunity to see an award-winning poet breathe life into his own works.

Chen Chen’s first book, “When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities,” was long listed for the National Book Award.“That’s quite an honor and almost unheard of for a first book of poems,” Eastern New Mexico University Assistant Professor of English Steve Bellin-Oka said.

A PhD student in the English and creative writing program at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Chen will read some of his poetry at 3:30 p.m. Feb. 15 in ENMU’s Buchanan Hall.

His work has also been featured in The New York Times Magazine, Bettering American Poetry, and on the PBS Newshour.

Chen’s poems are not only rhythmically unique, according to Bellin-Oka, but also “funny, moving, and smart.”

“He’ll treat listeners to that combination at his reading,” he said.

Bellin-Oka added that Opal Greer, an instructor of English at ENMU, will be reading before Chen and sharing her work in a way only a poet can.

“Poetry is usually considered only on the page, as an inert text one reads in a book and never hears in the voice of the actual poet. This changes at a poetry reading,” he said.

— Compiled by Staff Writer Eamon Scarbrough