Book

Twichell, Chase, 1950- author.

The snow watcher / Chase Twichell.

First edition.

Princeton, NJ : Ontario Review Press, [1998]

New York : George Braziller

©1998

101 pages ; 22 cm

Snow Watcher, Chase Twichell's fifth book, is a sequence of poems that asks a single obsessive question: what is the self? The book is a radical re-envisioning of what makes us human rather than animal, human rather than insentient. The poems delve into parts of childhood more comfortably forgotten, and into the ancient stillness of the monetary (Twichell is a student of Zen Buddhism). In both realms the known self dissolves, or is intentionally dismantled, and what is left is something impossible to name, though its startling voice can be heard in the austere, near-empty rooms of these poems.

Poetry.

Poetry.

Poems.

Road tar -- The black triangle -- The lost birds -- The wars -- Kerosene -- Mistake -- Private airplane -- Girl riding bareback -- Glimpse -- Little yellow flowers -- Cat and mirror -- The year I got rid of everything -- Weightless, like a river -- Pine -- Zazen, wired & tired -- Ignorant poem -- Imaginary Dokusan: Stranger -- Eleven hours -- Solo -- Animal languages -- Wild mare -- Altars -- Kid music -- Lilacs again -- Secrets -- Hologram -- Arsonist and fireman -- The innocent one -- Horse -- Saint Animal -- Decade -- Erotic energy -- A last look back -- Makeshifts -- Imaginary Dokusan: Autumn rain -- Imaginary Dokusan: Barking dog -- Silver and white elegy -- Snow -- Visitors -- The verge -- The voice of the air -- Mountains and rivers -- Walking meditation -- Tea mind -- Paint -- My Toshiba -- Hunger for something -- Disturbances of thought -- My skeleton -- Imaginary Dokusan: Rat -- My taste for trash -- Roach holder, circa 1967 -- Passing clouds -- Summer rain -- To the reader: The language of the cloud -- Today's lapses -- Minor problems -- Stray -- Cloud of unknowing -- Stirred up by rain -- The horse-angel -- Bees -- To the reader: Polaroids -- Architecture -- Violence to language -- Imaginary Dokusan: Thistle -- Imaginary Dokusan: Perfume -- Imaginary Dokusan: Furnace -- Ink stone -- Stone steps -- Icicle -- Mystery -- Tulip -- White pine -- To the reader: Blunt elegy -- To the reader: If you asked me -- To the reader: Twilight.

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811 Twichell