Yongyu Chen | |
|---|---|
| Born | Beijing, China |
| Occupations | Poet and scholar |
| Academic background | |
| Education | Cornell University (BA) Harvard University |
| Alma mater | Harvard University |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Film and Visual Studies |
| Website | https://yongyuchen.site/ |
Yongyu Chen is a Chinese American writer and artist. They are the author of Perennial Counterpart (Nightboat Books,2026),a winner of the 2023 Nightboat Poetry Prize. [1] In 2023,they won Poetry Magazine's Friends of Literature Prize. [2]
Chen was born in Beijing,China. [3] They grew up in Knoxville,Tennessee,and graduated from Farragut High School,where they competed on the quiz bowl team. [4] [3] [5] As a high school student,they received early recognition for their poetry from The Poetry Society. [6] They received their BA in comparative literature and Spanish from Cornell University. [7]
Their debut poetry collection,Perennial Counterpart,is forthcoming from Nightboat Books. Noting its cinematic quality,Tracy K. Smith described the collection as a "generous,exquisite debut" and praised it for "the lyric conviction animating [Chen]'s work,and the ongoing dialogue—across time,lives,temperaments and texts—that gently yet adamantly stitches us to one another." [8] It was selected as one of Literary Hub’s “Most Anticipated Books of 2026.” [9]
Chen is currently a PhD student in Film and Visual Studies at Harvard University. [7] Their scholarship focuses on "photography,queer theory,potentiality,&the ontology ðics of worlds." [7] In 2025,they were an ArtTable Fellow at the Public Art Fund. [10] Their poems have appeared in The Paris Review , Poetry ,and The Baffler . [11] [12] [13]