{"title":"Chase Twichell","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"things-as-it-is-book-chase-twichell-9781556595493","title":"Things as It Is","description":"\u003cp\u003e Twichell 's poems] open out into a stark, sometimes bewildered clarity. --\u003cem\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSuppose you had Sappho's passion, the intelligence and perspicacity of Curie, and Dickinson's sweet wit . . . then you would have the poems of Chase Twichell. --Hayden Carruth\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA major voice in contemporary poetry. --\u003cem\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eChase Twichell's eighth collection lifts up the joy of the moment while mourning a changing world. In Things as It Is--purposefully not things as they are--the present and past parallel and intermingle. Meditating on a litany of formative moments, Twichell's clear-as-a-bell voice delivers visceral and emotionally resonant lyrics, elegies, and confessions.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFrom What the Trees Said \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe trees have begun to undress. \u003cbr\u003eSoon snow will come to bandage \u003cbr\u003ethe whole wounded world.\u003cbr\u003eWhen I was young I eloped with \u003cbr\u003ethe sky. I wore blue-black, with \u003cbr\u003eunder-lit ribbons of pink . . .\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eChase Twichell\u003c\/strong\u003e, a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, Twichell has published seven previous poetry collections, including \u003cem\u003eHorses Where Answers Should Have Been\u003c\/em\u003e, which received the 2011 Kingsley Tufts Award. For ten years, she owned and operated Ausable Press.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49507989487889,"sku":"GOR013600067","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50189296435473,"sku":"CIN1556595492VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50390315565329,"sku":"CIN1556595492G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51037403939089,"sku":"NIN9781556595493","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52685180600593,"sku":"NLS9781556595493","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1556595492.jpg?v=1751150358"},{"product_id":"horses-where-the-answers-should-have-been-book-chase-twichell-9781852248673","title":"Horses Where the Answers Should Have Been","description":"Chase Twichell's poetry is marked by a strong identification with the natural world, one that exceeds any with other human beings. There's a dissociation born of a rough childhood, which only the later poems address head-on, though many earlier ones circle around it. Central early concerns are the heartbreak of love between men and women, the ecological decimation of our planet, and the nature of the human mind. Horses Where the Answers Should Have Been shows the evolution of a distinctive voice in American poetry through several collections written over 35 years. Beginning with \"Perdido\" (1991), each of her collections has had a distinct centre of gravity, with each poem contributing to a whole larger than the sum of its parts. Perdido probes the relationship between love and death. \"The Ghost of Eden\" (1995) grieves and rails against our poor stewardship of the earth. \"The Snow Watcher\" (1998) chronicles the early years of her study of Zen Buddhism - a crucial influence on all her later work - and begins to address a central fact of her childhood: early sexual abuse at the hands of a \"family friend\", and a lifelong battle with depression. \"Dog Language\" (2005) continues to explore these themes, and also the dementia and death of her father from alcoholism. In the background, questions regarding the human self continue to arise. The new poems of \"Horses Where the Answers Should Have Been\" are much more frontal in their treatment of these evolving, interlocked concerns, forthrightly taking on childhood sexual trauma, mental illness and substance abuse. But the heart of the book is the poems' focus on Twichell's continuing, deepening enquiry into the nature of the self as seen through the eyes of Zen. What is most interesting (and problematic) about these poems is that just as poetry goes where prose cannot, so Zen goes where language cannot. Thus the poems become sparer and sparer as they approach saying what cannot be said.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49628729278737,"sku":"GOR003585738","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51347123306769,"sku":"GOR013511622","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51393440252177,"sku":"GOR014253932","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":51519171166481,"sku":"NGR9781852248673","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52717167214865,"sku":"NLS9781852248673","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/185224867X.jpg?v=1750996048"},{"product_id":"perdido-book-chase-twichell-9780571165643","title":"Perdido","description":"W.B. Yeats said, that in the end poetry had only two subjects - sex and death. This volume from the American poet Chase Twichell underwrites the Yeatsian prescription, at once subtly and directly. The poems move with ease, between land and sea, present and past, imagination and reality.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49631893651729,"sku":"GOR008675880","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53632370475281,"sku":"GOR005124895","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0571165648.jpg?v=1751008727"},{"product_id":"snow-watcher-book-chase-twichell-9781852245023","title":"The Snow Watcher","description":"'In the last ten years Chase Twichell has published three very different and very strong books. The first, Perdido, was about desire and sexuality and dreams. The second, The Ghost of Eden, came as a surprise - an angry, clear-headed book about the destruction of the earth - as if she'd shaken off dreams and desire and taken a hard look at how things were. The newest book, The Snow Watcher, is a surprise again...Reading the poems in The Snow Watcher is like breathing cold air. Organised as a kind of narrative of her apprenticeship in Zen meditation, they are full of sharp observation, both of the world and herself, unsentimental poems with a sinewy intellectual toughness, and, as the book progresses, they open out into a stark, sometimes bewildered clarity.'- Robert Hass, Washington Post","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50135078600977,"sku":"GOR002987405","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1852245026.jpg?v=1751457437"},{"product_id":"snow-watcher-book-chase-twichell-9780865380936","title":"The Snow Watcher","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50371032842513,"sku":"CIN0865380937G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53339852472593,"sku":"CIN0865380937VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0865380937.jpg?v=1750980944"},{"product_id":"dog-language-book-chase-twichell-9781556592317","title":"Dog Language","description":"\u003cp\u003eOver the past 25 years, Twichell's reputation and reach has broadened with each new book. She is a poet whose books are anticipated and consistently receive stellar national review attention:\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"A major voice in contemporary poetry.\"--\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"A poet with a dazzling and profound imagination.\"--\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"An extraordinary poet whose lyrics plumb great intellectual and emotional depths.\"--\u003ci\u003eThe Miami Herald\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"There is a . . . Zen-like lucidity to [Twichell's] poetry.\"--\u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eDog Language\u003c\/i\u003e addresses the Zen question \"What is the self?\" in the modern age, where individual identity is questioned, medicated, and revised. Chase Twichell's tightly drawn poems move through the stages of human development and capture the complex emotions and challenges of family and aging.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eLike the best of artists, Twichell is able to handle common themes and emotions without ever reducing them to cliché or sentiment. She reminds us of \"The Rules\" she uses in her poems: \"Tell the truth. No decoration. Remember death.\" In one of the most poignant sections of \u003ci\u003eDog Language\u003c\/i\u003e, she writes of her father's death and asks what, if anything, survives us:\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrom \u003ci\u003eDog Biscuits\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eAfter my father's cremation,\u003cbr\u003e my sisters and I agreed\u003cbr\u003e to bury him privately\u003cbr\u003e when the ground thawed.\u003cbr\u003e One will plant a flowering tree,\u003cbr\u003e one see to the stone and its cutting,\u003cbr\u003e one call the grave-digger and the town clerk.\u003cbr\u003e It'll be just us, the daughters,\u003cbr\u003e presiding over ashes that could be\u003cbr\u003e any mammal's, or those of any love\u003cbr\u003e dispersible by wind.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eChase Twichell\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of six books of poems and a book of translations and is the co-author of the best-selling guidebook \u003ci\u003eThe Practice of Poetry\u003c\/i\u003e. She taught for several years at Princeton University before starting Ausable Press, a publisher dedicated to contemporary literature. She lives with her husband, the novelist Russell Banks, in the Adirondacks.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50390130458897,"sku":"CIN1556592310G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51037193273617,"sku":"NIN9781556592317","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1556592310.jpg?v=1750925666"},{"product_id":"horses-where-the-answers-should-have-been-book-chase-twichell-9781556593185","title":"Horses Where the Answers Should Have Been","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"[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.\" --\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"[Twichell's poems] track the inner movements of one life with an unexpected freshness.\" --\u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e 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.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eWhat etiquette holds us back\u003cbr\u003e from more intimate speech,\u003cbr\u003e especially now, at the end of the world?\u003cbr\u003e Can't we begin a conversation\u003cbr\u003e here in the vestibule,\u003cbr\u003e then gradually move it inside?\u003cbr\u003e What holds us back\u003cbr\u003e from saying things outright?\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eChase Twichell\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of six books of poetry and the best-selling writer's manual \u003ci\u003ePractice of Poetry\u003c\/i\u003e. She is the founding editor of Ausable Press and lives in rural New York with her husband, the novelist Russell Banks.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50430111449361,"sku":"CIN155659318XG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51037203628305,"sku":"NIN9781556593185","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52089265651985,"sku":"NLS9781556593185","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53160623767825,"sku":"CIN155659318XVG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/155659318X.jpg?v=1751341663"},{"product_id":"things-as-it-is-the-world-it-was-book-chase-twichell-9781780377988","title":"Things as It Is | The World It Was","description":"Tell the truth. No decoration. Remember death. These are the demands Chase Twichell has made of her poems for over half a century. One of America’s most prominent poets and a longtime student of Zen Buddhism, Twichell seeks to perceive what Shunryu Suzuki called things-as-it-is. These two books, published here in tandem, confront fundamental questions about the nature of the self: childhood trauma, the fate of a damaged planet, marriage and widowhood. Twichell’s poems – spare, unflinching, and exact – are distillations of reverence and grief. With language at once precise and intimate, she compels us to consider what it means to be conscious in a world where beauty and joy endure amid ecological and political crises. Chase Twichell has published nine books of poetry, including Horses Where the Answers Should Have Been: New \u0026amp; Selected Poems, published by Bloodaxe Books in the UK in 2010. Things as It Is followed from Copper Canyon Press in the US in 2018, and that collection is now published here for her UK readers together with her latest collection, The World It Was (2026).","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":53680230465809,"sku":"NGR9781780377988","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781780377988.jpg?v=1781681737"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-gb\/collections\/author-books-by-chase-twichell.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}