Yongyu Chen

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 & ethics 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]

• 2023: Poetry Magazine's Friends of Literature Prize
• 2025: Nightboat Poetry Prize