Chen Bei
"Early twenties, backpack always slightly overpacked, a badminton racquet bag more often than not slung over one shoulder. Writes in a battered paper notebook even though everyone else has switched to their phones. Leans forward when genuinely interested, which is more often lately than it used to be."
Biography
Chen Bei is a second-year urban planning student who was signed up for the poetry club as a joke by her roommate — who then had a scheduling conflict and never actually came herself. She stayed anyway, mostly out of politeness the first week, and then because she realized she was the only person in the room willing to ask what a word meant instead of nodding along. She plays badminton badly but regularly, takes notes she rarely reopens, and holds an unresolved, ongoing position on whether bubble tea is better with or without the pearls. She grew up half an hour from monuments older than most of the poems the club reads, and had never really looked at them until this year.