Dan Chiasson

Dan Chiasson in 2024

Dan Chiasson (/ˈtʃeɪsən/; born May 9, 1971) is an American poet, critic, and journalist. The Sewanee Review called Chiasson "the country's most visible poet-critic." He is the Lorraine Chao Wang Professor of English Literature and Chair of the English Department at Wellesley College.

Chiasson is the author of seven 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), The Math Campers (Alfred A. Knopf, 2020), and Bernie for Burlington: The Rise of the People's Politician.

Bernie for Burlington is a both "biography of Bernie's political rise" and a memoir of what Chiasson calls "a very unusual American experiment, a modern city run by a charismatic socialist and his smart, young administration, during the eight years when Ronald Reagan was in the White House." Chiasson added "I'm actually one of the outcomes of the experiment, and so is my book, looking back on the transformation of Burlington and the thrilling rise of Bernie and his ideas." Nicholson Baker called it "a book we need right now," a "big, lovingly-woven, Whitmanesque wicker work of grievances and glories, home truths and triumphs." Robert Pinsky praised its "wild variety of stories, voices and characters," and added "Dan Chiasson of Burlington, Vermont and American poetry is a masterful narrator."

Life

Chiasson was born in Burlington, Vermont. He grew up in the city of Burlington as the only child of his single mother. He attended Catholic schools, Mater Christi School and Rice Memorial High School, from which he graduated in 1989. He graduated summa cum laude in Classics and English from Amherst College (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, Vermont. He was a 2017 James Merrill House Fellow in Stonington, CT. He lives in Wellesley, Massachusetts, with his wife and two sons.

Chiasson is a longtime contributor to The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books. He was the poetry editor (with Meghan O'Rourke), and later advisory editor, of the Paris Review. 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.

Honors and awards

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.
  • — (2020). The math campers : 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
The anatomy of melancholy 2001 Chiasson, Dan (June 18, 2001). "The anatomy of melancholy". The New Yorker: 125.
Nocturne 2001 Chiasson, Dan (July 23, 2001). "Nocturne". The New Yorker: 67.
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.

History

  • Chiasson, Dan (2026). Bernie for Burlington: The Rise of the People's Politician. Knopf. ISBN 978-0593317495.

Criticism

———————

Notes
  1. ↑ Reviews Travisano, Thomas & Saskia Hamilton, eds. (2008). Words in air : the complete correspondence between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
  2. ↑ Online version is titled "Poetry of a childhood lost". Reviews Prikryl, Jana. The after party. Tim Duggan Books.
  3. ↑ Online version is titled "The illness and insight of Robert Lowell".
  4. ↑ Online version is titled "The great American poet of daily chores".
  5. ↑ Online version is titled "Shane McRae's poems to America".
  6. ↑ Online version is titled "The bittersweet poetry of 'Lima :: Limón'".
  7. ↑ Online version is titled "Tommy Pico filibusters mortality with poetry".
  8. ↑ Online version is titled "Inside Bernadette Mayer's time capsule".
  9. ↑ Online version is titled "What the Bolinas poets built".

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. ↑ "Dan Chiasson - John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation". Archived from the original on February 11, 2009. Retrieved September 12, 2009.
  7. ↑ "Wellesley's Dan Chiasson Is Named a 2008 Guggenheim Fellow", Wellesley College, April 9, 2008.