Chase Twichell (born August 20, 1950) is an American poet, professor, publisher, and, in 1999, the founder of Ausable Press. Her most recent poetry collection is ''Things as It Is'' (
Copper Canyon Press
Copper Canyon Press is an independent, non-profit small press, founded in 1972 specializing exclusively in the publication of poetry. It is located in Port Townsend, Washington.
Copper Canyon Press publishes new collections of poetry by both popu ...
, 2018). ''Horses Where the Answers Should Have Been
'' (
Copper Canyon Press
Copper Canyon Press is an independent, non-profit small press, founded in 1972 specializing exclusively in the publication of poetry. It is located in Port Townsend, Washington.
Copper Canyon Press publishes new collections of poetry by both popu ...
, 2010) earned her Claremont Graduate University's prestigious $100,000
Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award
The Kingsley and Kate Tufts Poetry Awards are a pair of American prizes based at Claremont Graduate University. They are given to poets for their collections of poetry written in the English language, by a citizen or legal resident alien of the ...
.
[ She is the winner of several awards in writing from the ]New Jersey State Council on the Arts
The New Jersey State Council on the Arts was founded in 1966 to support artistic activities in the state of New Jersey. It is funded by the New Jersey State Legislature and the National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Art ...
, the American Academy of Arts and Letters
The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Its fixed number membership is elected for lifetime appointments. Its headqu ...
and The Artists Foundation. Additionally, she has received fellowships from both the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...
. Her poems have appeared in literary journals and magazines including ''The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'', ''Field
Field may refer to:
Expanses of open ground
* Field (agriculture), an area of land used for agricultural purposes
* Airfield, an aerodrome that lacks the infrastructure of an airport
* Battlefield
* Lawn, an area of mowed grass
* Meadow, a grass ...
'', ''Ploughshares
''Ploughshares'' is an American literary journal established in 1971 by DeWitt Henry and Peter O'Malley in The Plough and Stars, an Irish pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since 1989, ''Ploughshares'' has been based at Emerson College in Bos ...
'', ''The Georgia Review
''The Georgia Review'' is a literary journal based in Athens, Georgia. Founded at University of Georgia in 1947, the journal features poetry, fiction, essays, book reviews, and visual art. The journal has won National Magazine Awards for Fiction ...
'', ''The Paris Review
''The Paris Review'' is a quarterly English-language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. In its first five years, ''The Paris Review'' published works by Jack Kerouac, Philip ...
'', ''Poetry
Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...
'', ''The Nation
''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper tha ...
'', and ''The Yale Review
''The Yale Review'' is the oldest literary journal in the United States. It is published by Johns Hopkins University Press.
It was founded in 1819 as ''The Christian Spectator'' to support Evangelicalism. Over time it began to publish more on ...
''.
Many of Twichell's poems are heavily influenced by her years as a Zen Buddhist
Zen ( zh, t=禪, p=Chán; ja, text= 禅, translit=zen; ko, text=선, translit=Seon; vi, text=Thiền) is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that originated in China during the Tang dynasty, known as the Chan School (''Chánzong'' 禪宗), and ...
student of John Daido Loori
John Daido Loori (June 14, 1931 – October 9, 2009) was a Zen Buddhist rōshi who served as the abbot of Zen Mountain Monastery and was the founder of the Mountains and Rivers Order and CEO of Dharma Communications. Daido Loori received s ...
at Zen Mountain Monastery
Zen Mountain Monastery (or, Doshinji, meaning Temple of the Way of Reality) is a Zen Buddhist monastery and training center on a forested property in the Catskill Mountains in Mount Tremper, New York. It was founded in 1980 by John Daido Loori or ...
, and her poetry in the book ''The Snow Watcher'' shows it.[Blue Flower Arts > Author Booking Agency > Chase Twichell Bio](_blank)
She attended the Foote School
New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,023 ...
in New Haven. In the Fall 2003 ''Tricycle magazine
''Tricycle: The Buddhist Review'' is an independent, nonsectarian Buddhist quarterly that publishes Buddhist teachings, practices, and critique. Based in New York City, the magazine has been recognized for its willingness to challenge established ...
'' interview with Chase, she says, "Zazen and poetry are both studies of the mind. I find the internal pressure exerted by emotion and by a koan to be similar in surprising and unpredictable ways. Zen is a wonderful sieve through which to pour a poem. It strains out whatever's inessential."
Twichell was born in New Haven, Connecticut, and earned her B.A. from Trinity College Trinity College may refer to:
Australia
* Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales
* Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...
and her M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers' Workshop
The Iowa Writers' Workshop, at the University of Iowa, is a celebrated graduate-level creative writing program in the United States. The writer Lan Samantha Chang is its director. Graduates earn a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree in Creative Wri ...
. She was married to novelist Russell Banks
Russell Banks (born March 28, 1940) is an American writer of fiction and poetry. As a novelist, Banks is best known for his "detailed accounts of domestic strife and the daily struggles of ordinary often-marginalized characters". His stories usua ...
from 1989 until his death in 2023. She has taught at Princeton University
Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...
, Warren Wilson College
Warren Wilson College (WWC) is a private liberal arts college in Swannanoa, North Carolina. It is known for its curriculum that combines academics, work, and service as every student must complete a requisite course of study, work an on-campus ...
, Goddard College
Goddard College is a progressive education private liberal arts low-residency college with three locations in the United States: Plainfield, Vermont; Port Townsend, Washington; and Seattle, Washington. The college offers undergraduate and gra ...
, University of Alabama
The University of Alabama (informally known as Alabama, UA, or Bama) is a Public university, public research university in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Established in 1820 and opened to students in 1831, the University of Alabama is the oldest and la ...
, and Hampshire College
Hampshire College is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. It was opened in 1970 as an experiment in alternative education, in association with four other colleges ...
.Ausable Press > About the Editor
Twichell was a judge for the 2011
Griffin Poetry Prize
The Griffin Poetry Prize is Canada's most generous poetry award. It was founded in 2000 by businessman and philanthropist Scott Griffin.
Before 2022, the awards went to one Canadian and one international poet who writes in the English language. ...
.
Bibliography
Poetry
;Collections
*
* ''The Odds'' (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1986)
* ''Perdido'' (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1991)
* ''The Ghost of Eden'' (Ontario Review Press, 1995)
* ''The Snow Watcher'' (Ontario Review Press, 1998)
* ''Dog Language'' (Copper Canyon Press, 2005)
* ''Horses Where the Answers Should Have Been'' (Copper Canyon Press, 2010)
* ''Things as It Is'' (Copper Canyon Press, 2018)
;List of poems
;Anthologies edited
* ''The Practice of Poetry: Writing Exercises From Poets Who Teach'' (edited with Robin Behn: HarperPerennial, 1992)
;Translations
* ''The Lover of God'', Poems by Rabindranath Tagore (Copper Canyon Press, 2003) (translated with Tony K. Stewart)
References
External links
Author Biography: ''PoetryNet'' > August 1998 > Chase Twichell*
Chase Twichell">ttp://www.blackbird.vcu.edu/v3n1/poetry/twichell_c/index.htm Poems & Bio: ''Blackbird'' > Chase TwichellPerceiving human consciousness through award-winning poetryHartford Trinity College ''Mosaic''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Twichell, Chase
1950 births
Living people
American women poets
Poets from New York (state)
Poets from Connecticut
National Endowment for the Arts Fellows
American Zen Buddhists
Iowa Writers' Workshop alumni
University of Iowa alumni
Trinity College (Connecticut) alumni
The New Yorker people
20th-century American women writers
21st-century American women writers