Dan Chiasson

Dan Chiasson (/ˈtʃeɪsən/; born May 9, 1971[1] in Burlington, Vermont) is an American poet, critic, and journalist. The Sewanee Review called Chiasson "the country’s most visible poet-critic." He is the Lorraine C. Wang Professor of English Literature at Wellesley College.

Dan Chiasson

Chiasson is the author of six books: The Afterlife of Objects (University of Chicago Press, 2002), Natural History (Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), One Kind of Everything: Poem and Person in Contemporary America (University of Chicago Press, 2007), Where's the Moon, There's the Moon (Alfred A. Knopf, 2010), Bicentennial (Alfred A. Knopf, 2014) and The Math Campers (Alfred A. Knopf, 2020).

Life

Chiasson grew up in Burlington, Vermont, where he attended Mater Christi School and Rice Memorial High School, from which he graduated in 1989.[2] He graduated summa cum laude in Classics and English from Amherst College[3] (1993), and from Harvard University, where he received a Ph.D in English and was awarded the Whiting Foundation Award in the Humanities.

In addition to teaching at Wellesley, Chiasson has been affiliated with Boston University's Master of Fine Arts program, with NYU's program in Paris, France, and with the Middlebury College Bread Loaf Environmental Conference in Ripton, Vt. He lives in Wellesley, Massachusetts, with his wife and two sons.

He is the poetry critic for The New Yorker, as well as a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books, where he writes about poetry, pop music and film. He was the poetry editor (with Meghan O'Rourke) and later advisory editor, of the Paris Review.[4] His poems have been translated into many languages, including German by Jan Wagner. His "Natural History" was published as "Naturgeschichte" at Luxbooks, a publishing house focused on American poetry in bilingual editions. In the UK, he is published by Bloodaxe Books.

He is on the editorial board of the literary magazine The Common, based at Amherst College.[5]

Honors and awards

• 2008 Award in Literature, American Academy of Arts and Letters
• 2008 Guggenheim Fellowship for poetry [6][7]
• 2004 Whiting Award

Bibliography

See also links in the External links section below.

Poetry

Collections

• Chiasson, Dan (2002). The afterlife of objects. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• — (2007). Natural history : poems. New York: Random House.
• — (2010). Where's the moon, there's the moon : poems. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
• — (2014). Bicentennial : poems. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Anthologies

• Hix, H. L., ed. (2008). New voices : contemporary poetry from the United States. Irish Pages.

List of poems

Title	Year	First published	Reprinted/collected
From 'The Names of 1,001 Strangers'	2017	Chiasson, Dan (May 1, 2017). "From 'The Names of 1,001 Strangers'". The New Yorker. 93 (11): 38–39.
Obituary	2014	Chiasson, Dan (January 6, 2014). "Obituary". The New Yorker. 89 (43): 60.
Self	2000	Chiasson, Dan (July 24, 2000). "Self". The New Yorker. 76 (20): 40.
Swifts	2008	Chiasson, Dan (July 29, 2008). "Swifts". Poem. Slate.

Criticism

• Chiasson, Dan (1993). The fidgets of remembrance: three reflections on Robert Lowell's late poetry. Amherst College.
• — (2007). One kind of everything : poem and person in contemporary America. University of Chicago Press.
• — (April 19, 2010). "Forms of attention : Don Paterson's 'Rain'". The Critics. Books. The New Yorker. 86 (9).
• — (November 2012). "The humble vernacular : a word-of-mouth dictionary". Reviews. Harper's Magazine. 325 (1950): 90–94.
• — (April 15, 2013). "End of the line : new poems from Carl Phillips". The Critics. Books. The New Yorker. 89 (9): 78–79.
• — (October 28, 2013). "The ghost writer : Lucie Brock-Broido's "Stay, Illusion"". The Critics. Books. The New Yorker. 89 (34): 78–79.
• — (February 10, 2014). "Bet the farm : Robert Frrost's turbulent apprenticeship". The Critics. Books. The New Yorker. 89 (48): 72–76.
• — (June 2, 2014). "Mother tongue : poetry and prose by Rachel Zucker". The Critics. Books. The New Yorker. 90 (15): 77–79.
• — (October 20, 2014). "View from the mountain : new poems by Louise Glück". The Critics. Books. The New Yorker. 90 (32): 95–97.
• — (April 13, 2015). "Out of this world : James Merrill's supernatural muse". The Critics. Books. The New Yorker. 91 (8): 70–74.
• — (March 21, 2016). "The tenderness trap : Robyn Schiff and the poetry of ordinary terror". The Critics. Books. The New Yorker. 92 (6): 89–90.
• — (June 20, 2016). "Boundary conditions : Adrienne Rich's collected poems". The Critics. Books. The New Yorker. 92 (18): 78–81.
• — (August 8–15, 2016). "Childhood's end : a debut about life, language, and what binds them". The Critics. Books. The New Yorker. 92 (24): 75–77.[8]
• — (December 4, 2017). "One man's trash : how A. R. Ammons turned the everyday into art". The Critics. Books. The New Yorker. 93 (39): 69–72.[9]
• — (February 11, 2019). "Song of my selves : Shane McRae's poems to America". The Critics. Books. The New Yorker. 94 (48): 68–69.[10]
• — (June 3, 2019). "Bittersweet : Natalie Scenters-Zapico's poems evoke damage and repair". The Critics. Books. The New Yorker. 95 (15): 65–67.[11]
• — (January 13, 2020). "Original recipes : appetite and anxiety in Tommy Pico's poems". The Critics. Books. The New Yorker. 95 (44): 68–69.[12]

References

1. Dan Chiasson at poets.org.
2. "Rice memorial High School Graduates". Burlington Free Press. Burlington, VT. June 5, 1989. p. 3B – via Newspapers.com.
3. "Poet, Critic and Editor Dan Chiasson '93", Amherst College, 2009.
4. "Msthead", The Paris Review.
5. "About The Common".
6. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2009-02-11. Retrieved 2009-09-12.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
7. "Wellesley’s Dan Chiasson Is Named a 2008 Guggenheim Fellow", Wellesley College, April 9, 2008.
8. Online version is titled "Poetry of a childhood lost". Reviews Prikryl, Jana. The after party. Tim Duggan Books.
9. Online version is titled "The great American poet of daily chores".
10. Online version is titled "Shane McRae's poems to America".
11. Online version is titled "The bittersweet poetry of 'Lima :: Limón'".
12. Online version is titled "Tommy Pico filibusters mortality with poetry".

External links

• Search for Chiasson's work in The New Yorker
• Search for Chiasson's work in The New York Review of Books
• Search for Chiasson's work in The Paris Review
• Profile at The Whiting Foundation
• Dan Chiasson interviewed by Christopher Lydon, "Whose Words These Are," Radio Open Source, May 27, 2010
• "Amherst Poets Dream Date: Interview with Dan Chiasson" by Josh Jacobs, September 2011