#170: Mary Jean Chan — Emotional Truth in Contemporary Poetry: Imagery, Juxtaposition, and Finding the Right Form

Nov 30, 2025

Mary Jean Chan, an award-winning poet and academic, discusses the heart of contemporary poetry—emotional truth. She shares insights on using imagery and juxtaposition to convey complex feelings, particularly around queerness and grief. Chan emphasizes the importance of restraint in writing, advising how to craft impactful poems without tipping into melodrama. She also addresses the writing process, submission strategies, and the lessons gained from judging prestigious literary prizes, highlighting the significance of originality and emotional resonance in poetry.

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ANECDOTE

Poetry Began As Solace In Business School

Mary Jean Chan started writing poetry as a disaffected business student in Hong Kong, finding solace in library poetry stacks instead of finance problem sets.
Reading Adrienne Rich made poetry feel accessible and political, sparking the transition to serious poetic practice.

ADVICE

Submit Early And Keep Producing

Send poems out rather than hoarding them; rejection often signals a poem needs more work and helps you improve it.
Keep writing while you submit, and alternate writing, editing, and sending to avoid stagnation.

ANECDOTE

A Publisher Portal Changed Everything

Chan submitted six poems through Faber's submission portal and those poems were eventually noticed, kickstarting their publication journey.
They emphasize trying obvious routes even if others say it's impossible because the worst response is still a no.

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Award-winning poet Mary Jean Chan on emotional truth in contemporary poetry, the imagery and juxtaposition that hold big feelings on the page, writing queerness, family and grief with care, and what submissions and prize judging reveal about poems that endure.

You'll learn:

Why emotional truth sits at the centre of Mary Jean’s work and how you can use it as a compass in your own poems.
How to move from a single striking line into a finished poem by working on rhythm, line breaks, and imagery.
What juxtaposition and understatement can do for poems about grief and other intense subjects (and how to avoid tipping into melodrama).
How to decide whether a memory or idea belongs in a poem, a short story, or another form.
Ways to write about queerness, family, and other vulnerable themes while setting boundaries that protect your relationships and your wellbeing.
How to approach submissions, rejections, and prize lists so they support a long-term poetry practice rather than define your worth.
What reading and judging for major prizes can teach you about sentences, images, and books that stand out in a crowded field.
How to sustain a poetry life alongside teaching, study, and care by staying attentive to everyday moments and small pockets of time.

Resources and Links:

About Mary Jean Chan

Mary Jean Chan is the author of the poetry collections Flèche and Bright Fear; Flèche won the Costa Book Award for Poetry and was shortlisted for multiple international prizes, while Bright Fear was a Guardian Best Poetry Book of 2023 and shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection, the Writers’ Prize, and the Dylan Thomas Prize. They co-edited 100 Queer Poems, co-wrote Siblings, teach poetry on the MSt in Creative Writing at the University of Oxford, and have judged major awards including the Booker Prize and the Dylan Thomas Prize.

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