You know the guy whose reputation is that he tells it like it is. Who has this elaborate hold on that thing someone should have told you about yourself a long time ago, and, hey, he’s not going to be the one to do it. But it’s totally going to be him, if you hang out long enough. That’s Michael Chang. So beware. He’s the reality show contestant who’s definitely there for reasons he’ll divulge as they night goes on. Whether or not they’re the right reasons, well, everything’s subjective. If you’re wondering the experience of reading a Michael Chang poem, imagine you’re at a bar, and there’s this guy talking to the bartender. And he keeps saying these things, and you look over at him at one point, and you’re like, “Can you just relax.” Imagine how that guy’s going to go off on you. And if you were in a spectator to this scene it would be highly entertaining. Michael Chang’s poems is that “going off” activity, but in poetic form. It’s like if the MTA’s “If you see something, say something.” had been elaborated into a statement on poetics. With Michael Chang at the center. Wearing white sneakers. And a ballcap. With a nametag that says, “I’m here for you, bro.”
Were you thinking of having nachos tonight? Say something, says Michael Chang’s poetics. Trying to decide between a manhattan and a martini? Say something, says Michael Chang. His poems are that freedom with pop culture and stinging rebuke that Michael Robbins wishes he’s had in ‣. Or maybe he did. But not for my reading. Michael Robbins is to The Sound of Music as Michael Chang is to someone cool you want to keep talking to. There’s a lot of performance in Michael Robbins that feels like he keeps waiting for you to say something nice about his shirt. Because, you know, there were those poems he wrote. That’s not what I see in Michael Chang, though Chang could easily be considered performative.
Like if Chang were being cast as a New York School poet, he’d be somewhere between O’Hara and Schuyler. Fun with some traces of earnestness. And all over impulsive. Like take hedge fund and invest all of it in whatever you’re thinking, then say what you’re thinking, then sit for a second and say the next thing you’re thinking. Chang’s poems are a constant reach for the now moment. Not make it new. Make it now! When Aristotle talks about isolating the now moment in his Physics, and he’s like maybe you think you can do it, but you never will, because every time the now has already passed. How tragic, you might say. Or frustrating. You’ll have neither of those emotions if you’re reading a Michael Chang poem, though. Because he already the now coming, and he said something about it. I hope you were listening.
The following tags are a purely subjective approach I’ve used for reading this book. Tagging, for me, acknowledges that slotting a book into hard categories or “schools” can be elusive when it comes to 21st Century poetry. In response, I’ve developed tags whose lenses operate from subject matter, identity poetics, and stylistics.