“Super Gay Poems”

Happy Pride Month, friends!

Partners in Rhyme was honored to have Harvard Professor, poet, and literary critic Stephanie Burt visit a recent session at Cambridge Rindge & Latin School in MA. During her visit, Professor Burt talked about Super Gay Poems, her new anthology of fifty-one LGBTQIA+ poems. In addition to curating a varied collection of queer poetry, Burt provides a concise, insightful essay about each poem. This is a wonderful teaching resource and an accessible anthology for those who are a little scared of poetry.

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Here’s a sample from Super Gay Poems:

Summer

You are the ice cream sandwich connoisseur of your generation.

Blessed are your floral shorteralls, your deeply pink fanny pack with travel-size lint roller just in case.

Level of splendiferous in your outfit: 200.

Types of invisible pain stemming from adolescent disasters in classrooms, locker rooms, & quite often Toyota Camrys: at least 10,000.

You are not a jigglypuff, not yet a wigglytuff.

Reporters & fathers call your generation “the worst.”

Which really means “queer kids who could go online & learn that queer doesn’t have to mean disaster.”

Or dead.

Instead, queer means, splendiferously, you.

& you means someone who knows that common flavors for ice cream sandwiches in Singapore include red bean, yam, & honeydew.

Your powers are great, are growing.

One day you will create an online personality quiz that also freshens the breath.

The next day you will tell your father, You were wrong to say that I had to change.

To make me promise I would. To make me promise.

& promise.

—Chen Chen

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“Queer means, splendiferously, you.”

–Chen Chen

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Watch Chen Chen read “Summer” (2:30 minutes in):

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Source:
“Summer” by Chen Chen from Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency, 2022.

Copyrighted material used for educational purposes.