A Q & A with Vermont Poet Laureate Chard deNiord

Sadie Housberg
Burlington Free Press

Chard deNiord is the Poet Laureate of Vermont. The position was first established in the state 58 years ago this month on July 22 1961, when Robert Frost took the helm. A professor of English at Providence College, deNiord lives in Westminster West.

As his four-year term comes to a close, deNiord spoke with the Free Press to talk about the origins of the position and reflect on his own career.

BFP: How did the position of Poet Laureate come to be?

“Well it started with Robert Frost,” deNiord said. He was the first poet to officially hold the title of Vermont Poet Laureate.

Robert Frost poses with a cake on his 85th birthday in this 1959 portrait by Walter Albertin.

“When he died in 1963, sort of at the height of his fame,” said deNiord, “the State decided there was really no other poet in Vermont who deserved the same recognition."

The position was put on hiatus until 1988 when Governor Madeline Kunin reinstated it. Galway Kinnell became the first Vermont Poet Laureate to hold the title after Frost.

The Vermont Arts Council selects one poet from a group of nominees, who is then appointed by the Governor.

BFP: Why is Robert Frost is such an icon and figurehead of Vermont poetry? Do you feel a personal connection to his work?

It took people some time to recognize Frost’s talent because he wasn’t writing in the vein of modernists who were fashionable at the time, according to deNiord. But his work took hold - and firmly.

“Frost had this extraordinary gift, really like no other, to write so memorably about the Vermont landscape in a way that both entertained and terrified at the same time,” deNiord said. “It stuck in people’s heads for its wisdom, for its lyricism, and for its gripping narratives.”

A 1961 portrait of Robert Frost by Walter Albertin.

BFP: When you became Vermont Poet Laureate, did that shift your focus as a writer?

“I really enjoy my privacy and the quiet I need to write, so I had to make an adjustment to being a little more public,” deNiord said.

The position of Poet Laureate doesn't come with a job description, said deNiord. So he had to decide what he wanted to do with his term.

DeNiord published Roads Taken: Contemporary Vermont Poetry in collaboration with Sydney Lea, previous Vermont Poet Laureate.

Chard deNiord is an American author, poet and teacher who resides in Westminster West, Vermont. DeNiord is a professor of English at Providence College and the current Poet Laureate of Vermont.

Encouraging and sustaining the trend of strong Vermont poets has been another focus for deNiord. He has interviewed dozens of Vermont poets on Brattleboro Community TV, written a bi-monthly column for the Valley News, read at libraries across the state and organized the Brattleboro Literary Festival during his term.

BFP: What is your association with Vermont?

Requirements for the nomination include residency in Vermont and a long association with the state.

"I grew up in the Blue Ridge Mountains," said deNiord, "but I spent a lot of my childhood in Vermont." The Green Mountains remind him of his childhood views of the Appalachian Mountains in Virginia.

He moved to Vermont in 1989 to teach comparative religions and philosophy at the Putney School. He also taught poetry and writing there before taking a position at Providence College in Rhode Island.

The view from Mount Mansfield on the Laura Cowles Trail looking out over Camels Hump and the Green Mountains. Norwich University founder Alden Partridge climbed Mount Mansfield and Camels Hump in the early 1800s.

“I’ve just fallen in love with its landscape, its people, its history,” deNiord said. He chose to stay in Vermont despite teaching over two hours away in Rhode Island for the past 20 years.

BFP: You’ve been writing your whole life. When did you first realize that poetry was what you wanted to focus on?

"As Robert Frost once described, poetry writing is a condition — you can’t stop writing, you’re addicted to it," deNiord said. But as a teenager, it was hard to admit that poetry was what he wanted to do.

In high school, he would continually forgo his homework and other responsibilities to write. That's when he realized poetry was his calling.

BFP: What sort of topics do you find yourself returning to?

“I find that one of the topics I write over and over about is the landscape and the natural world around me,” deNiord said.

Given deNiord's penchant for writing about nature, it is unsurprising that Robert Frost was one of his first influences.

DeNiord also writes frequently about emotion - grief and love, in particular. He has authored six books of poetry, with Interstate being his most recent.

BFP: Advice to an aspiring writer?

“As W. S. Merwin once told a young poet at Princeton, ‘If you have to know you’ve written a good poem, if you have to know that for any reason, stop writing.’” deNiord said.

He hopes to continue supporting Vermont poets even when his term as Poet Laureate comes to a close.

He offered this advice to young writers: "Don't be discouraged, keep writing, listen to your muse, believe in yourself and be aware that the muse can be merciless and divine at the same time."

Contact Sadie Housberg at shousberg@freepressmedia.com or 802-660-1845. Follow her on Twitter at @HousbergSadie.