Boyfriend Perspective by Michael Chang Review by Dustin Pearson

Boyfriend Perspective by Michael Chang 

Review by Dustin Pearson

ISBN-13: 9780578985626

Publisher: Really Serious Literature

Publication date: 09/09/2021

Pages: 138

In short, Michael Chang’s Boyfriend Perspective is a book about everything. Set in New York, Chang’s law practicing speaker amasses a collection of disclosures that reminds of the Modernist predicament—being tasked through writing with rising to the occasion of rendering, then confronting, a world newly and uniquely subject to incalculable amounts of influence and exposures. Though, it’s not Chang’s speaker necessarily who is overwhelmed, noting in the collection’s opening poem, “New York Remembering Nights Awake,” “Everything in the city is so commercial & drab / It needs more graffiti.” 

Attempts to compartmentalize Chang’s “perspective” are constantly undone. What could have easily been a book devoted to a compressed chronicle of a romantic relationship Chang’s speaker describes as “two artists trying to con each other. Then at some point in the scheme we are both marks & make a hasty exit. It is messy yet delightful & utterly infuriating,” becomes even more complicated by a variously rich compilation of socioeconomic, literary, and pop culture references and critiques. Perhaps anyone somewhat familiar with the literary landscape of poetry even within the 20th and 21st centuries will enjoy finding the (sometimes) frank allusions to various and often widely uncontested and celebrated poets (at least openly). It’s an exciting change of pace, to say the least. 

Yet, as enjoyable as these references and critiques are for their witty and syntactically distinct executions, there are moments that bypass such tactics in favor of the inherent appeal of the lyric, especially when addressing systemic injustices. One such poem is the momentous “Rules for American Life” in which Chang’s speaker relays, “There may be limited opportunities for persons of color to feel joy or express happiness. Pls note that no open displays of bliss are permitted without prior approval. In many cases it is acceptable to be Azn (especially Chinese), but you should only speak out for your fellow poc if it is safe to do so (no accent pls); most of the time, stay quiet & low to the ground; never question a White, even if (as is often the case) you are right & they are talking out of their ass;”

Formally, Chang’s collection both conforms to and breaks from convention, a dynamic that lends to the poems simultaneously recalling the experience of (de)constructing a collage, watching a montage, reading a comic book, texting your best friend or ex, and eating a spread of dishes worthy of the best holidays with your mouth open while having the highest high-energy conversation of your life. Such formal engagement paired with wide ranging genre-bending aesthetic inspirations runs the risk of being called unpoetic, which the collection embraces with striking awareness, as seen in the poem “Black & White,” when Chang’s speaker discloses, “When a blk womxn ax do you know what poetry snaps are / I resolved to become a great, nay, legendary poet / \ Tell me, dear reader, how am I doing?”

While the assignment of legendary status to poets and the poetry they produce might continue to be subjective and unjust to someone, there’s a hard-to-deny confidence about Boyfriend Perspective. Everything about the collection feels like a marathon. There’s sensation and suggestion ranging from vibrant to grotesque and thought ranging from understatement to overstatement in ALL CAPS and incredible density across what feels like a vast length. One could read the poems slowly at the risk of never finishing them (it’s better to finish them). One could read the poems fast at the risk of missing out on something vital that may or may not be randomly recalled during a family dinner or favorite news segment. Such a dynamic range of reading possibility is also deliberate. Toward the end of the collection, in a poem called “Colored Nails,” Chang’s speaker plainly states, “what did you say? i’m over here queering literature,” and, in the next poem, called “Pen Pineapple Apple Pen,” admits, “I’ll be your parachute, fantasize abt fading out, the last song / But, above all else, wanting you, so desperately, / to stay.”

Dustin Pearson is the author of A Season in Hell with Rimbaud (BOA Editions, 2022), Millennial Roost (C&R Press, 2018), and A Family Is a House (C&R Press, 2019). In 2019, The Root named Dustin one of nine black poets working in “academic, cultural and government institutions committed to elevating and preserving the poetry artform.” The recipient of fellowships from Cave Canem, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing, and The Anderson Center at Tower View, Pearson has served as the editor of Hayden’s Ferry Review and a Director of the Clemson Literary Festival. The recipient of the Katherine C. Turner and John Mackay Shaw Academy of American Poets Awards and a 2021 Pushcart Prize, his work also appears in The Nation, Poetry Northwest, Blackbird, The Boiler, Bennington Review, TriQuarterly, The Literary Review, The Cortland Review, Poetry Daily, and elsewhere.

2 March 2022