Synopses & Reviews
Publishers Weekly called Chase Twichell "a major voice in contemporary poetry," and this long overdue retrospective supports the claim.
Selected from six award-winning books, this volume collects the best of Twichell's meditative and startling poems. A longtime student of Zen Buddhism, Twichell probes how the self changes over time and how the perception of self affects the history and meaning of our lives. Her poems exhibit a deep and urgent love of the natural world amidst ecological decimation, while also delving into childhood memories and the surprise and nourishment that come from radical shifts in perception.
What etiquette holds us back
from more intimate speech,
especially now, at the end of the world?
Can’t we begin a conversation
here in the vestibule,
then gradually move it inside?
What holds us back
from saying things outright?
Review
"[Twichell’s] poems generate the requisite heat with the poet’s precise, original and frequently brilliant use of language.... A major voice in contemporary poetry." Publishers Weekly
Review
"[Twichell’s poems] track the inner movements of one life with an unexpected freshness." The Washington Post
Review
"At its core, Horses Where the Answers Should Have Been is a collection of sacred moments, moments in which Twitchell deftly turns the mundane into poetry." Buddhist Review
Review
"To read a well done 'selected poems' is to follow a life, and we find that here.... Hers is a world of wounded beauty which she confronts and records for us." New York Journal of Books
Review
"Horses Where the Answers Should Have Been provides generous selections from six books, 1981-2005, and twenty-seven new poems (in a sense a seventh book). The poems range from five lines to five pages and explore themes such as displacement, suffering, desire, fantasy, appetite, and dream, all in a dark vision that offers the warning of a jeremiad or the conundrum of a Zen koan." Dennis Barone, Rain Taxi (Read the entire )
Synopsis
This long-overdue retrospective gathers the best of Chase Twichell's meditative and startling poems from six award-winning volumes, including a book-length selection of new work. An editor and longtime student of Zen Buddhism, Twichell crafts poems of lyrical precision and insistence. Throughout Twichell's career her poems have exhibited a deep and urgent love of the threatened natural world, and have delved into childhood memories and the surprise and nourishment that come from radical shifts in outlook.
Synopsis
Collecting the work of a poet whom Publishers Weekly called "a major voice in contemporary poetry."
Synopsis
Poetry. Publishers Weekly called Chase Twichell "a major voice in contemporary poetry," and this long overdue retrospective supports the claim. Selected from six award-winning books, this volume collects the best of Twichell's meditative and startling poems. A longtime student of Zen Buddhism, Twichell probes how the self changes over time and how the perception of self affects the history and meaning of our lives. Her poems exhibit a deep and urgent love of the natural world amidst ecological decimation, while also delving into childhood memories and the surprise and nourishment that come from radical shifts in perception.
About the Author
Chase Twichell is the author of six books of poetry and the best-selling writer's manual Practice of Poetry. She is the founding editor of Ausable Press and lives in rural New York with her husband, the novelist Russell Banks.