A01=Yongyu Chen
AAPI
Asian
Asian-American
Asian-American poetry
Author_Yongyu Chen
Category=DC
Category=DCC
Category=DCF
epistolary
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_new_release
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_poetry
film
film studies
friendship
letters
literature
Poet
poetics
poetry
reading
trans
trans poetry
transgender
Product details
- ISBN 9781643623108
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 04 Jun 2026
- Publisher: Nightboat Books
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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Named one of Literary Hub's "Most Anticipated Books of 2026"
A poetic study in magical modes of connection over distance—how both friendship and reading are similar ways of being together while being alone.
Written over several years of solitude, study, and transformation, the poems in Perennial Counterpart trace an evolving, self-questioning practice of thinking-in-poetry where long, reflective lines—evoking both prose and photography—brush against elliptical, fractured modes of film and literary criticism. Anchored by the author’s obsessive reading life, this is a book where lyric inquiry becomes its own form of company. Here, the poem is written to remake its writer through glittering connections to a personal lineage of thought.
Yongyu Chen lives in Cambridge, MA, and their work has appeared or is forthcoming in journals including The Paris Review, Poetry, and The White Review.
