Chard deNiord is the new Vermont Poet Laureate. The author of four previous books of poetry—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)—he teaches English and Creative Writing at Providence College, where he is Professor of English. He is also the author of a book of essays and interviews with seven senior American poets (Lucille Clifton, Ruth Stone, Jack Gilbert, Maxine Kumin, Robert Bly, Galway Kinnell, Donald Hall) titled Sad Friends, Drowned Lovers, Stapled Songs: Conversations and Reflections on 20th Century American Poets (Marick Press, 2011). He lives in Westminster West, Vermont, with his wife Liz.

Other poems by Chard deNiord in Verse Daily:
February 10, 2015:   "Anchorite in Autumn" "She rose from bed and coughed..."
November 23, 2013:   "Under the Sun" "The days are my consolation...."

Books by Chard deNiord:

Other poems on the web by Chard deNiord:
"Dream of Heaven"
"Poem on My 60th Birthday"
"The Muse Writes Luis Jorge Borges A Letter On His 86th Birthday"
Four poems
Five poems
Two poems
"A Soul Addresses Her Beloved in the Non-Green Zone"
"Frog"
Four poems
"In The Beginning"
Four poems
"Augustine's Pears"

Chard deNiord's Website.

About Interstate:

"Interstate seamlessly connects the state of knowing, in a worldly sense, to that knowing that is deeply felt yet unbodied. The precise attention to the ordinary things of the world, and in particular to the natural world, gives way to the wisdom of the spirit undergirding these searching poems. Reading them, I felt the delights of language in each new revelation: 'Words were all; / they came to me like birds to a tree.'"
—Natasha Trethewey

"DeNiord is a poet who stands firmly in a tradition that weaves Stevens's philosophical daring to Whitman's open and unending heart. Interstate is a gem of a book about the intersection of light and dark, joy and pain."
—Jericho Brown

"Interstatehas a fierce engine that is both erotic and metaphysical. If readers look down its well and expect to see either their reflection or heaven as separate visions, they'll be disappointed. But if they want to see both, and can live in the shimmer, then this book is for them."
—Bruce Smith

"Here is a poet who goes again and again to the inherent beauty of nature only to realize human consciousness works like a wedge to divide itself from that which it would love. This is a book of wisdom and affection, and a necessary book"
—Maurice Manning

"Interstate navigates a world that is at once unsettlingly exterior and interior, as dreams underwrite the conscious perception of a realm equally strange and familiar."
—Allyn Rosser