In his new poetry collection, Chard deNiord explores the paradoxical nature of unknowing.

Past Praise for Chard deNiord

Interstate seamlessly connects the state of knowing, in a worldly sense, to that knowing that is deeply felt yet unbodied. The precise attention to the ordinary things of the world, and in particular to the natural world, gives way to the wisdom of the spirit undergirding these searching poems. Reading them, I felt the delights of language in each new revelation: Words were all; / they came to me like birds to a tree.-Natasha Trethewey
Past Praise for Chard deNiord

'History, you know, is one thing and our lives are something else,' wrote Octavio Paz, and Chard deNiord's response to this in The Double Truth is both fascinating and instructive. The voice in these poems seems to have a cunning ability to see oneself as if from a distance. This is compelling, beautiful poetry.-Ilya Kaminsky
Past Praise for Chard deNiord

Here is a poet with a truly extraordinary verbal imagination. His poems begin in the commonplace and rise-or soar, leap, swell-to the climactic surreal in a few lines. This is aptitude beyond technique, unassailable by the workshopping greenhorns. It is indeed a kind of ecstasy for every and any reader. I recommend Chard deNiord's Night Mowing as enthusiastically as I can.-Hayden Carruth

Always, Earth is the place of transformation. If ever there was a poet who answered the command in Rilke's Ninth Elegy it's deNiord. It's thrilling how much he expects of language and experience, how little he takes for granted...In My Unknowing is charged with the pang of the insoluble mysteries: dreams, waking, the face of the one you love.-Dennis Nurkse

Chard deNiord is cofounder of the New England College MFA program in poetry. He is the author of the poetry collections Asleep in the Fire, Sharp Golden Thorn, Night Mowing, The Double Truth, and Interstate. His book Sad Friends, Drowned Lovers, Stapled S