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DeNiord’s poetry collections include In My Unknowing (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020); Interstate (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015); Speaking in Turn, a collaboration with Tony Sanders (Gnomon Press, 2011); The Double Truth (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011); Night Mowing (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005); Sharp Golden Thorn (Marsh Hawk Press, 2003) and Asleep in the Fire (University of Alabama Press, 1990). DeNiord has also authored two books of interviews with renowned American poets, Sad Friends, Drowned Lovers, Stapled Songs: Reflections and Conversations with Twentieth Century American Poets (Marick Press, 2012) and I Would Lie To You If I Could (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018).
DeNiord is currently a professor of English at Providence College and the former Poet Laureate of Vermont. He lives in Westminster West, Vermont with his wife, Liz.
RECENT BOOKS
In My Unknowing
University of Pittsburgh Press, February, 2020
"'The force that gives us meaning/is terrible, bloody and sweet,' writes Chard deNiord in his astonishing new book In My Unknowing. DeNiord is a true spiritual visionary, which is to say there are no dialed-in answers, no self-defense, the stakes are sky-high, and everything happens in real time. The voice can be ecstatic or lacerated: it’s also funky, humane, topical, grounded. The cloud of unknowing can waft from a fine cigar. Lovers at a drive-in are moved to discover the night sky. A self-imposed chore reveals '[...] the lamp of internal difference that needs/the spark of my seeing anew to light its mantel.'
Always, Earth is the place of transformation. If ever there was a poet who answered the command in Rilke’s Ninth Elegy it’s deNiord. It’s thrilling how much he expects of language and experience, how little he takes for granted... In My Unknowing is charged with the pang of the insoluble mysteries: dreams, waking, the face of the one you love.”
—Dennis Nurkse