An explosion of verse

Gradually, he attracted a large number of readers and, in 2015, he was featured in a documentary The Verses of Us together with five other migrant worker poets. In 2016, he went to the United States to talk about his poems at universities such as Harvard and Yale.

In a speech, he said, "There are souls in the 'humblest' bones! I write poems, because I've got things to say. I know in this world, quite a lot of people, even the families and friends of migrant workers, know very little about their work and lives. This is actually a time of infinite alienation. There are such big gaps between generations, countries, and fates."

Reading The Book of Songs, Chen got to know the time and mindset, as well as the misery and pain, of ancient China, and understood that real poetry is a historical record of the reality and mindset of the era in which it is written.

"There are 7 billion people in the world, and only a very few people's voices can be heard. Those silent souls, when they can finally speak, what are they going to say?"

In one of his most well-known poems, A Record of Explosion, he wrote:"I daren't take a look at my life. It's hard, pitch black. Sharp like an air pick. It bleeds once abraded by rocks.

"I killed my middle age 5,000 meters under the ground. I cracked the rock strata again and again with dynamite. So that I recomposed my life.

"My little family, at the foot of Shangshan Mountain far away. They're sick, their bodies covered with dust. How much I can cut from my middle age. How much longer can they live.

"I had 3 tons of dynamite in my body. They (the family) are the detonators. Just at last night. I exploded, like rocks, falling over the place."