Poetry Review
Dan Chiasson
Natural History
Note, for example, the recent success of Dan Chiasson whose recent book Natural History is being lauded in poetry circles. Dan first “broke out” with a selection of poems in The New Yorker on “emerging poets.” His first book–well reviewed–was published by a good university press–University of Chicago. Natural History is from Knopf, perhaps the best commercial poetry press in North America.
Now Dan writes a good line, even quite a good line, but I’m not convinced that he’s a Wallace Stevens, for example. What Dan does seem to have (and forgive me if I’m letting my jealousy show just a tad) is simplicity. I mean by this that the poem easily gives up its meaning and emotion. Dan’s poems are never hard. They are great value-for-your-money poems. They are rarely long, generally unpretentious, and often clever–important qualities for readers who don’t generally like poetry.
