"Chens crystalline debut explores memory, nostalgia, and identity in poems that jump-cut between locationsBarcelona, Berlin, Ithaca, New York City . . . . Readers will savor this strong and cerebral study of selfhood." Publishers Weekly
"Are these poems, or exploding postcards dispatched from the land of dreams? Yongyu Chens exquisite Perennial Counterpart balances conceptual density with a yearning lyricism: always strange, unintelligible to the end, but intelligible to those who speak the language of rain and flowers. A monumental debut." Jackie Wang
"To be with Perennial Counterpart is to river around the intimate folds of its letters, lovers, loved ones, literary souls. Like the strange fur that grows on a crystal, Yongyu Chens probing language turns mixture into a beguiling poetics of friendship, a reverie for a more elemental and rejuvenated address to our unsettled world." Jay Gao
"What a gift it is to climb into each of Yongyu Chens rapturous, cinematic, philosophical lines, and find myself in a world that so much and so many insist cannot be . . . A generous, exquisite debut." Tracy K. Smith
