“ltpgtMichael Changs ltemgtThings a Bright Boy Can Doltemgt continues their irreverent although irreverent seems too quaint a word poetic project Their serious hijinks include critiques of pop culture politics and the ugly excesses of the empire A fourthgeneration New York School poet Chang is both frankand Frank OHara famously picked up New World Writing while Chang champions Cobra Milk Changs inventive poems take the shape of maps bingo cards lie detector tests and a commencement address The poems find themselves on LinkedIn in chatrooms with text abbreviations Both comic and provoking Chang is Fortune Feimster meets Sylvia Plath meets Gus Van Sant They challenge the very nature of what a poem can doand then sneak up on you with tender lines like i sing to love singing and u loved me most in a poem Changs is a wild and wonderful original voice ltstronggtDenise Duhamel author of ltemgtBlowoutltemgtltstronggtltpgtltpgtMichael Changs latest ltemgtThings a Bright Boy Can Doltemgt is an electric kaleidoscopic queer sexy hilarious collection a onesided chat room transcript a chaotic house party where youre as likely to stumble across Rene Magritte as Lebron James Kitty Dukakis Foreigner the Powerpuff Girls Chang deftly backstrokes through the contradictions and ironies of our degraded age their course bending always toward the persistence of desire love Chang writes high there are u still listening We are We cant help it A wild astonishing book ltstronggtEdgar Kunz author of ltemgtFixerltemgtltstronggtltpgtltp dirltrgtIn an electrifying update on the spirit of the New York School Chang takes us directly to the heart of the culture in these poems As frantic and shifty as a TikTok stream ltemgtThings a Bright Boy Can Doltemgt is made of film clips news items heartbrokenness and hilarity These are the poems OHara would have written if hed had Tinder and Chang swipes right on nearly everything The voice is multiple the forms are too and the range of references is dizzying I dont care how young or old you are you will feel behind the 8ball watching these rapidfire poems insert themselves into high low and every other culture at once Sexual image intentional And at the bottom of it all is a genuine love You already have this book in your hands so just walk up to the counter and buy it Itll be fun ltstronggtMatthew Rohrer author of ltemgtThe OthersltemgtltstronggtltpgtltpgtAs Michael Chang writes in ltemgtThings a Bright Boy Can Doltemgt they agree they are a great poet Good What a relief to meet a writer so completely unafraid of their own power unaverse to danger and ready for anything This collection is another planet full of life in Changs rapidlyexpanding universe as rich in intellect and elegance as in comedic timing Compare this work to nothing Underestimate it and perish ltstronggtA Light Zachary author of ltemgtMore Sureltemgtltstronggtltpgtltp dirltrgtMore than anything once again Changs poetry is fun and liberatory confronting expectations of what the genre should be headon ltstronggtThe Rumpus on ltstronggtltemgtltstronggtSynthetic JungleltstronggtltemgtltbrgtThe poems in Michael Changs latest collection Almanac of Useless Talents are punk jazz or noise hip hopavantgarde and anarchist Intertextual and reality Surreal and real Ugly and pretty Crystalclear and obscure Confident and confessional Serious and absurd I speak in binaries but Changs poems are anything but They deconstruct binaries Poetry is often the art of containment Changs poems cannot be contained They bust through barriers and borders defiantly ltstronggtKate Carmody ltstronggtltemgtltstronggtElectric Litltstronggtltemgtltbrgtltpgt”