{"id":540,"date":"2013-04-16T16:00:47","date_gmt":"2013-04-16T20:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/?page_id=540"},"modified":"2013-04-25T10:24:21","modified_gmt":"2013-04-25T14:24:21","slug":"featured-faculty-dan-chiasson","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/past-issues\/current-issue-2\/featured-faculty-dan-chiasson\/","title":{"rendered":"Featured Faculty: Dan Chiasson"},"content":{"rendered":"
Dan Chiasson is the author of four books, most recently a book of poems, Where’s the Moon, There’s the Moon<\/a> <\/em>(Knopf 2010).\u00a0 He is the poetry critic for The New Yorker, and a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books. Chiasson was born and raised in Burlington, Vermont, attended Amherst College and received a PhD from Harvard University. He is a professor of English at Wellesley College and of poetry at Boston University.<\/h6>\n

 <\/p>\n

AWAY WE GO
\n<\/b><\/h1>\n

 <\/p>\n

Little bird, little sugar-cube,<\/p>\n

Tell me all the state secrets<\/p>\n

Of the crab apple, barberry, brake,<\/p>\n

The concealed locales, the plots<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Only you can unravel, my figurine,<\/p>\n

O my collectible dinnerware,<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve hunted everywhere for answers;<\/p>\n

Answer me, my New Jersey kingpin,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My flower hoarder, electronic eye,<\/p>\n

My wind-up mini-Frankenstein;<\/p>\n

If I speak into your corsage,<\/p>\n

And say it slowly, so we both nod off:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My father died, nor was he at the height<\/p>\n

Of his career as a bowler, nor<\/p>\n

Had he discovered the cure for NASCAR\u2014<\/p>\n

Quite without fanfare, little jackass,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

O my severely damaged little friend,<\/p>\n

He died, and what I felt, pea pod,<\/p>\n

Projection, tired device, was shy:<\/p>\n

Surely you can identify, flight risk,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Going from unconscious whim to whim<\/p>\n

As though the forest was only scenery?<\/p>\n

I settle for thick yogurt, bird,<\/p>\n

While you get to eat the scenery.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019m one of the whims, fatherless<\/p>\n

In this brand-new way, observing as<\/p>\n

My father\u2019s features idle inside<\/p>\n

And thicken my sons\u2019 cheekbones:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Where did you come by your business casual,<\/p>\n

Your sturdiness and eerie sobriety<\/p>\n

Auditing the Spring\u2019s enormous income<\/p>\n

While I piss my windfall zilch away?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dan Chiasson is the author of four books, most recently a book of poems, Where’s the Moon, There’s the Moon (Knopf 2010).\u00a0 He is the poetry critic for The New Yorker, and a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books. Chiasson was born and raised in Burlington, Vermont, attended Amherst College and received […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3755,"featured_media":0,"parent":522,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/540"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3755"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=540"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":714,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/540\/revisions\/714"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}