Liar!

★ Named one of “The 10 Most Anticipated Post-90s Writers” by Wenhsun Magazine
★ Chen Po-yu’s third poetry collection
★ Book design by Wu Jui-che, winner of the Golden Butterfly Award – Taiwan Publication Design Award

With special recommendations by Hsi Mi and Chang Yi-hsun
All beauty and ugliness in the world / are inevitable give and take
Hsi Mi: “Not at all Yang Mu!”
Chang Yi-hsun: “‘Seeing’ is not just the movement of the retina, but also the investment of emotion and memory. Only this kind of love makes history possible.”

In recent years, Chen Po-yu has been continuously creating diverse works, frequently winning literary awards and being selected for annual anthologies. He was chosen as one of the ten most anticipated post-90s writers by Wenhsun Magazine. In 2026, after more than two years, he will release his third poetry collection, Liar.

Following the exploration of viewing perspectives and media in his first poetry collection, mini me, and the focus on queer identity, symbols, and material use in his second poetry collection, The Day of the Duel, this new collection elevates its scope. In addition to senses and desires, it also addresses and playful engages with themes such as war, sense of place, and artistic aesthetics. The simple two-character title, “Liar,” evokes numerous associations. As the author himself draws a parallel to his previous collection: “Duelists act without speaking, liars speak without acting. Is it possible that when a liar speaks of love, what they truly want to express are a myriad of other emotions?” A liar isn’t necessarily the negative image they appear to be on the surface; the interplay of truth and falsehood creates an intriguing dynamic in both language and imagery. This kind of development and tension is, of course, politi-sexual. Chen Po-yu states: “The more pride solidifies as the foundation of queer political life, the more I want to see and write about those ‘NG products’ that spill out of the grid (or are carefully hidden beneath it).” In addition to echoing queer scholar Heather Love’s concept of feeling backward or feeling “bad-assed,” we can also feel “bad” (as in villainous), feel “out of date,” feel “wild” (as in naked), feel “marginalized,” or feel “like a mistress”... Isn’t contemporary life all about envy, jealousy, and hatred? Liar is an Empire State Building, photographed and re-photographed, and also body groceries in a shopping cart. Seriously, a poetry collection in hand “may encapsulate the bad elements within emotions, not just bad guys, but also bad feelings.”

The entire book is dazzling and full of surprises, as if adorned with rare pearls and corals, stylishly beautiful and meticulously structured. Art designer Wu Jui-che stated that the cover design was inspired by the poem “Dog Gathering,” echoing the entire collection’s “slightly explicit, a bit erotic yet restrained quality.” The book also contains rare observations, explorations, and various fantasies about museums and art in Chinese modern poetry. Chen Po-yu admits that his creative process was indeed inspired by many artists, and in the final section, he delves deeply into the Pop Art master Andy Warhol, as in “Empire: A Study of Andy Warhol.” Chang Yi-hsun highly praises this poem, stating that “every shift is brilliant, revealing Po-yu’s extraordinary understanding and deconstruction of art history.” Indeed, queer contexts are subtly embedded in Warhol’s creations, yet they haven’t been frequently highlighted in discussions. In Liar, the poem “Study” describes Warhol’s early use of the blotted-line technique, through which he left behind numerous studies of male heads. Many of the models were reportedly his lovers or one-night stands. In ancient beauty pageants, the slogan was, “Beauty is having love in your heart.” Does the beauty of creation then come from having love in one’s heart? This equivocal sentence is, of course, false (Liar!). Reading here doesn’t stop at emotional sentiment; readers can fully enjoy how text and art interact, while also engaging their core muscles of philosophy, aesthetics, and social issues, playfully diving with the author into a deep sea of both hard and soft approaches, of both giving and taking. As Hsi Mi states in the preface: “If a poet is a liar, his method of deception is to integrate words, forms, sounds, images, and themes to draw readers into a world that is both illusory and real, familiar and strange, noisy and quiet.”