Poetry. DOG LANGUAGE addresses the Zen question "What is the self?" in the modern age, where individual identity is questioned, medicated, and revised. Chase Twichell's tightly drawn poems move through the stages of human development and capture the complex emotions and challenges of family and aging. Like the best of artists, Twichell is able to handle common themes and emotions without ever reducing them to cliché or sentiment. She reminds us of the rules she uses in her poems: "Tell the truth. No decoration. Remember death." Chase Twichell is "an extraordinary poet whose lyrics plumb great intellectual and emotional depths"--The Miami Herald.

Author City: KEENE, NY USA

Chase Twichell is the author of six books of poetry and the best-selling writer's manual Practice of Poetry. She is the founding editor of Ausable Press and lives in rural New York with her husband, the novelist Russell Banks.