Dan Chiasson
Dan Chiasson has been contributing poems to The New Yorker since 2000 and reviews since 2007. He teaches English at Wellesley College. His poetry collections include “Where’s the Moon, There’s the Moon,” “Bicentennial,” and “The Math Campers.” He is working on his next project, “Bernie for Burlington: A Biography of His Rise in a Changing Vermont 1968-1991,” forthcoming in 2025.
What the Bolinas Poets Built
Along the coast of California, a vibrant literary community came together, but its many styles could not be defined together.
Big Laughs and Hard Silences in Erin Belieu’s Poetry
Her latest collection toggles between lighthearted comedy and deep-seated loss, using paradox as a prerequisite for beauty.
What Henry Adams Understood About History’s Breaking Points
He devoted a lifetime to studying America’s foundation, witnessed its near-dissolution, and uncannily anticipated its evolution.
How Louise Glück, Nobel Laureate, Became Our Poet
For decades, she has taught us the contours of our own inner lives.
Poems That Map the Urges of Private and Political Space
New collections by Henri Cole and Eduardo C. Corral take on everyday melancholy and national emergency, exposing the constraints that govern our desires.
Inside Bernadette Mayer’s Time Capsule
“Memory” is a fifty-year-old project, but its nostalgia for summers lost speaks uncannily to our moment.
The Fearless Invention of One of L.A.’s Greatest Poets
Wanda Coleman’s work tallies and transcends the difficulties of being a black woman in a profession that hardly pays.
Joyelle McSweeney’s Poetry of Catastrophe
Her latest work, a nightmarish portrait of the toxic hazards that surround us, arrives uncannily in the midst of a pandemic.
The Retreating Horizon of Time in Coronavirus Quarantine
In the current moment of self-isolation, the hoary ethic of temporal improvement seems once again relevant.
The Pandemic Is Remaking What Performance Can Be
As we adjust to empty halls and crowdless ceremonies, the newly silenced world is providing plenty of opportunities for spectators, abetted by the Internet and social media.
The Coronavirus and the Ruptured Narrative of Campus Life
Colleges across the country are trying to figure out their way forward in a story in which meanings have suddenly, drastically, and frighteningly changed.
Robert Hass’s Inner History of the Decade
“Summer Snow,” the poet’s first new book since 2010, arrives right on time.
Tommy Pico Filibusters Mortality with Poetry
“Feed” is personal history, literary history, American history, and breakup art.
The Many Voices of Charles Wright
In the past fifty years, his poems have taken many audacious forms. They sound little like one another, but he always sounds like himself.
Reginald Dwayne Betts’s Poetry After Prison
In “Felon,” his third collection, Betts upsets the narrative of incarceration and redemption.
Fanny Howe Makes Sense of Beginnings and Endings
After sixty years of writing, the poet’s latest collection has fresh urgency—the necessity of reimagining time even as time runs out.
The Last Poems of James Tate
In the course of his career, Tate mastered the art of absurdist endings. Then he faced the most surreal one of all: his own.
The Bittersweet Poetry of “Lima :: Limón”
Natalie Scenters-Zapico’s latest poems probe the richness of contradiction, mixing violence and pleasure, damage and repair.
The Man Who Built the Bauhaus
Walter Gropius founded the German design school a century ago, but his work, now antique, still feels ahead of its time.
What the Bolinas Poets Built
Along the coast of California, a vibrant literary community came together, but its many styles could not be defined together.
Big Laughs and Hard Silences in Erin Belieu’s Poetry
Her latest collection toggles between lighthearted comedy and deep-seated loss, using paradox as a prerequisite for beauty.
What Henry Adams Understood About History’s Breaking Points
He devoted a lifetime to studying America’s foundation, witnessed its near-dissolution, and uncannily anticipated its evolution.
How Louise Glück, Nobel Laureate, Became Our Poet
For decades, she has taught us the contours of our own inner lives.
Poems That Map the Urges of Private and Political Space
New collections by Henri Cole and Eduardo C. Corral take on everyday melancholy and national emergency, exposing the constraints that govern our desires.
Inside Bernadette Mayer’s Time Capsule
“Memory” is a fifty-year-old project, but its nostalgia for summers lost speaks uncannily to our moment.
The Fearless Invention of One of L.A.’s Greatest Poets
Wanda Coleman’s work tallies and transcends the difficulties of being a black woman in a profession that hardly pays.
Joyelle McSweeney’s Poetry of Catastrophe
Her latest work, a nightmarish portrait of the toxic hazards that surround us, arrives uncannily in the midst of a pandemic.
The Retreating Horizon of Time in Coronavirus Quarantine
In the current moment of self-isolation, the hoary ethic of temporal improvement seems once again relevant.
The Pandemic Is Remaking What Performance Can Be
As we adjust to empty halls and crowdless ceremonies, the newly silenced world is providing plenty of opportunities for spectators, abetted by the Internet and social media.
The Coronavirus and the Ruptured Narrative of Campus Life
Colleges across the country are trying to figure out their way forward in a story in which meanings have suddenly, drastically, and frighteningly changed.
Robert Hass’s Inner History of the Decade
“Summer Snow,” the poet’s first new book since 2010, arrives right on time.
Tommy Pico Filibusters Mortality with Poetry
“Feed” is personal history, literary history, American history, and breakup art.
The Many Voices of Charles Wright
In the past fifty years, his poems have taken many audacious forms. They sound little like one another, but he always sounds like himself.
Reginald Dwayne Betts’s Poetry After Prison
In “Felon,” his third collection, Betts upsets the narrative of incarceration and redemption.
Fanny Howe Makes Sense of Beginnings and Endings
After sixty years of writing, the poet’s latest collection has fresh urgency—the necessity of reimagining time even as time runs out.
The Last Poems of James Tate
In the course of his career, Tate mastered the art of absurdist endings. Then he faced the most surreal one of all: his own.
The Bittersweet Poetry of “Lima :: Limón”
Natalie Scenters-Zapico’s latest poems probe the richness of contradiction, mixing violence and pleasure, damage and repair.
The Man Who Built the Bauhaus
Walter Gropius founded the German design school a century ago, but his work, now antique, still feels ahead of its time.