Michael Chang, Things a Bright Boy Can Do

 

HERE WE GO FOREVER

cody who goes both ways

they say familiarityaccelerates impact

in secret huddles

tender kid w/ the kindtan

poached pears

vanilla ice cream

who was wearing the flip-flops?

i’m illiterate b/c i didn’thave a high-school boyfriend

she smiled when theyasked but

it’s hard to get by w/that kind of sincerity

in the wet warm place

hand-hold ur thing iz asandwich

free rein in the blasthole

the mary jo bang

FromManhattan-based American poet and editor Michael Chang, following titles such as Heroes (Temz Review/845 Press, 2025), Toy Soldiers (Action,Spectacle, 2024), SWEET MOSS (Anstruther Press, 2024) [see my review of such here], SYNTHETIC JUNGLE (Northwestern University Press, 2023) and EMPLOYEESMUST WASH HANDS (GreenTower Press, 2024), is the full-length Things a Bright Boy Can Do (Toronto ON: Coach House Books, 2025). I’m all forcross-border conversation, obviously, but it is always a curiosity to see aCanadian small press produce a full-length by a non-Canadian poet (which meansit wouldn’t be eligible for Canada Council funding, putting the financial onus onpublishing such a title entirely on the press, something few publishers are ableto take on). It doesn’t happen that often, and it suggests the press is seekingto expand its reach, both in terms of foreign sales and attempting to bring anauthor into the Canadian literary conversation (although that might be anoverly generous speculation on my part), especially given this particular titleappears to be a unique edition and not, say, a Canadian edition of a title simultaneouslyappearing with a publisher in the author’s home country (such as with CoachHouse publishing a collection of essays moons back by American poet C.D.Wright, or Anansi publishing a poetry title by British poet Simon Armitage). Withchapbooks produced over the past two years through Temz Review/845 Press andAnstruther Press, as well as an author biography that cites publication inCanadian journals such as Capilano Review, Contemporary Verse 2,the Ex-Puritan, The Malahat Review and PRISM International,Canadian literature is certainly paying attention to Michael Chang, as much asMichael Chang seems to be attending Canadian publishers; perhaps a move northis being considered? [edit: I have since been informed that Michael Chang is actually Canadian]

Orperhaps I make too much of this; or perhaps, even further, borders mean notwhat they used to when it comes to how books are seen, distributed, articulatedand sold (beyond the current tariff nonsense, of course). On the surface, thepoems in Chang’s Things a Bright Boy Can Do are accumulative, whip-smart,hurt and funny, sassy and queer, comparable in many ways to the work of New England-based poet and editor Chen Chen [see my review of their 2023 collection,Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency, here], speaking first-personlyric monologues around emergencies and histories, childhood recollection andliterary interveavings, violence and linguistic measure, cultural referencesand expansive gestures. “i detect your silence,” Chang writes, as part of “ATONEMENT,”“you you practiced // personification of ALLURE // fresh face pummelled red& teal // according to that distant sheepdog narcissa [.]” There is thesass, the casual glance and gesture of the deeply felt, deeply considered; thehighly-literature “flirty to righteousness, wrathful to lackadaisical,”providing an echo between the two, but in Chang, something different, as well:something looser, almost freer, allowing for the movement of the gesture todirect the narratives. “Matthew DICKMAN was so upset he could not stand,” the expansiveand gestural “BABY DRIVE SOUTH” writes, “Michael DICKMAN was investigated byanother agency due to / a conflict of interes // Paul MULDOON told you hishorse was larger than yours // CACONRAD sent anthrax to Betsy DeVos &  was awarded / the Medal of Freedom [.]” Atturns thoughtful, joyful, meditative and silly, Things a Bright Boy Can Dooffers a perspective on how one might live best and simply be within the world,within the moment, whatever else might be happening or happened, or even yet tohappen. Or, as the poem “KING OF THE WORLD” writes, just at the end: “on thisday // we go back to our old routine [.]”