Things as It Is

"Poems of balanced wildness and instinctual grace."—New York Journal of Books

“[Twichell’s poems] open out into a stark, sometimes bewildered clarity.” —The Washington Post

“Suppose 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

“A major voice in contemporary poetry.” —Publishers Weekly

Chase 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.

From “What the Trees Said”:

The trees have begun to undress.
Soon snow will come to bandage
the whole wounded world.
When I was young I eloped with
the sky. I wore blue-black, with
under-lit ribbons of pink . . .

Chase Twichell, a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Twichell has published seven previous poetry collections, including Horses Where Answers Should Have Been, which received the 2011 Kingsley Tufts Award. For ten years, she owned and operated Ausable Press.