Westminster West

$19.95

by Chard deNiord

This collection bears witness to ecstasy and grief through persona. By inhabiting the voices of Adam and Eve, Abelard and Heloise, etc., deNiord reveals the enduring alterity contained within the self.

Westminster West traverses the worlds of here and beyond. Chard deNiord divines “the everydayness of the mystery . . . in which being and making poetry are the same.” From posthumous correspondence between Abelard and Heloise to such poems as “Skywriting Over The Rockies,” “With A Bone In My Heart,” and “I Call Out To You,” this collection betrays a mortal charge, bearing witness to what Emily Dickinson called “each ecstatic moment/ to which we must an anguish pay” and which Aridjis in his defiance of death calls “dust in love.”

Ambitious and masterful, deNiord renders such ancient subject matter as love, betrayal, landscape, loss, grief, aging, and ecstasy new throughout Westminster West. He transforms the echo chamber of futility, silence, and failure by aspiring to cross over to “the other,” whatever it may be, a stone or cloud or lover or garment, or cancerous lung, with a “negative capability” that allows it, no matter its identity, to speak memorably in a way that transcends simple definition and ultimately any personal connection

Westminster West is divided into three sections that complement each other in their archetypal themes which range historically, mythologically, and cathectically. The poems in the first section imagine correspondences and dialogues between couples, including Heloise and Abelard, Adam and Eve, Gilgamesh and Enkidu, Odysseus and Calypso, a widower and his deceased wife in the time of Covid, and a lovesick husband in the air above the Rocky Mountains and his beloved on the ground. The second section also features love poems but focuses on more instructional and metaphysical themes that vary from metaphorical pedagogy on the topic of sex to “the harsh advice of loss” to the memory of a young couple’s transcendent, romantic walk by a river. Section three moves away from love poems to mortal and environmental themes, including elegies, pastorals, and a concluding confessional credo on the bittersweet reality of poetry’s irony and blessing.

by Chard deNiord

This collection bears witness to ecstasy and grief through persona. By inhabiting the voices of Adam and Eve, Abelard and Heloise, etc., deNiord reveals the enduring alterity contained within the self.

Westminster West traverses the worlds of here and beyond. Chard deNiord divines “the everydayness of the mystery . . . in which being and making poetry are the same.” From posthumous correspondence between Abelard and Heloise to such poems as “Skywriting Over The Rockies,” “With A Bone In My Heart,” and “I Call Out To You,” this collection betrays a mortal charge, bearing witness to what Emily Dickinson called “each ecstatic moment/ to which we must an anguish pay” and which Aridjis in his defiance of death calls “dust in love.”

Ambitious and masterful, deNiord renders such ancient subject matter as love, betrayal, landscape, loss, grief, aging, and ecstasy new throughout Westminster West. He transforms the echo chamber of futility, silence, and failure by aspiring to cross over to “the other,” whatever it may be, a stone or cloud or lover or garment, or cancerous lung, with a “negative capability” that allows it, no matter its identity, to speak memorably in a way that transcends simple definition and ultimately any personal connection

Westminster West is divided into three sections that complement each other in their archetypal themes which range historically, mythologically, and cathectically. The poems in the first section imagine correspondences and dialogues between couples, including Heloise and Abelard, Adam and Eve, Gilgamesh and Enkidu, Odysseus and Calypso, a widower and his deceased wife in the time of Covid, and a lovesick husband in the air above the Rocky Mountains and his beloved on the ground. The second section also features love poems but focuses on more instructional and metaphysical themes that vary from metaphorical pedagogy on the topic of sex to “the harsh advice of loss” to the memory of a young couple’s transcendent, romantic walk by a river. Section three moves away from love poems to mortal and environmental themes, including elegies, pastorals, and a concluding confessional credo on the bittersweet reality of poetry’s irony and blessing.

About the Author

Chard deNiord is the author of six books of poetry Bestiary (Bridge Press, 2022), In My Unknowing (University of Pittsburgh Press 2020), Interstate (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015), The Double Truth (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011), Night Mowing, (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005, Sharp Golden Thorn (Marsh Hawk Press, 2002), Asleep In The Fire (University of Alabama Press 1990. He is also the author of two books of interviews with eminent American poets: Sad Friends, Drowned Lovers, Stapled Songs, Conversations and Reflections on 20th Century Poetry (Marick Press, 2011) and I Would Lie To You If I Could  (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018). deNiord is Professor Emeritus of English and Creative Writing at Providence College, co-founder of The New England College MFA Program, The Spirit And The Letter Writers Workshop in Patzcuaro Mexico (with Tom Lux and Jacqueline Gens). After graduating for Yale Divinity School in 1978, he worked as both an inpatient and outpatient psychotherapist at The Connecticut Mental Health Center before attending the Iowa Writers Workshop where he worked closely with Gerald Stern and Jorie Graham. He then taught at The Frederick Gunn prep school from 1985 to 1989 before securing a tenured position at The Putney School as teacher of comparative religions and philosophy. He published his first book of poetry, Asleep In The Fire in 1990 with The University of Alabama Press. In 1999 he began teaching English and Creative Writing at Providence College where he remained until 2020. In 2001 he published his second book of poetry titled Sharp Golden Thorn with Marsh Hawk Press. In 2005 he published his third book of poems titled Night Mowing with The University of Pittsburgh Press, followed by three more book with this press: The Double Truth (2011), Interstate (2015) and In My Unknowing (2020).  He retired from teaching as a full professor in 2020 and then soon earned the title Professor Emeritus. From 2015 to 2019 he served as poet laureate of Vermont. He lives in Westminster West, Vermont with his wife, Liz. 

Format: Paperback
Published: April 2025
ISBN: 9781961209237