The Afterlife of Objects

by Dan Chiasson

Both intensely personal and deeply rooted in recognizable events of personal, familial, or national significance, The Afterlife of Objects is a kind of dreamed autobiography. With poise and skill, Dan Chiasson divulges the enigmas of the mind of not just one individual but of an entire social world through a beautifully constructed poetic voice that issues from a kind of mythic childhood of our collective, tortured humanity. This sophisticated debut collection offers deceptively simple poems that evoke highly complex states of mind with a voice that has long been listening to the discordant music of contemporary life.

Genres: Poetry

81 pages, Paperback

First published October 15, 2002

Reviews

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this book when it first came out in 2002 and read it cover to cover. I remember being blown away by the poems and have held onto it for that reason. I have recently returned to my practice of reading at least one poem daily and so I picked this one back up, but I didn't have nearly the same response. Maybe my taste in poetry has evolved, but maybe, and I think this a more likely scenario, it's more about where I am in my life right now. I believe that poetry speaks so strongly to feeling and mood, that poets and poems will resonate more at some points in our lives than others, and that the book I rate a three today, I may have rated a four back in 2002, and may rate a five or a two some day in the future. I will also say that two of the last poems in the book, Self-Storage and Aubade, particularly Aubade, are now among my favorite poems.

[Patrick Faller · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've reread many of the poems in this collection, to a growing sense of frustration. It's as if each of the poems glistens with the promise of an object viewed from far off, but upon closer inspection of the poems it becomes clear that most of the interest Chiasson generates is through a highly polished display of language. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing; it's just that one first senses a promise in the book's early poems that diminishes over time when the artifice of the language wears away in the longer narrative poems of the book's final section. It's as if, after too many readings, Chiasson's subjects become too contrived, as if he were putting them out there as lies that slowly unravel to reveal something superficial--the desire to be heard? To shock and awe? I'm not sure I'm explaining myself clearly; Chiasson, like Bidart, is interested in unearthing and attempting to reconcile the shame accumulated through the small failings of a life lived, but where Bidart's earnestness is enacted struggle--the painstaking struggle to get the words right, to force through breath, pause, and logical connection, the shame up against confession in a breathless tension--Chiasson falls prey to surrealistic devices. One would rather that Chiasson have stayed more closely affiliated to his enacted struggle; once the poems begin to coalesce, Chiasson's project seems too grand a failure of the imagination. He tries too hard, in other words, to force the Big Idea through his carefully constructed lines.

This is not to say the book isn't worth reading. The middle section's tight, spare lyrics suggest Chiasson's direction in his second book, and are sharpest for their implication. The longer poems toward the end of the book seem to be where Chiasson mostly comes up short. One wonders if the book's final fifteen pages--excluding a few of the final poems--might have been cut to preserve the spare effects those lyrics have to hold the reader in a state of suspended imagining.

[Abby · Rating 5 out of 5]

First book of poems I've read in a while to which my primary response was envy. Chiasson's world is populated with more things than people, but everything is colorful and alive -- and subject to all the despair that the former entail. He has a firm but delicate hand with his language. I suppose it does sometimes come up to the edge of being too polished, but for me the compression and precision almost always paid off.

[Antonia · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5, I guess. This is Chiasson’s debut collection and I haven’t read much of his poetry, though have read some of his critical essays. It’s hard for me to evaluate — just not the kind of poetry I enjoy reading. I most enjoyed the shorter pieces in this collection. Many phrases and images I found arresting, but overall didn't enjoy it as much as I'd hoped. I especially liked "My Ravine," "Ward," and "The Kitsch of Death,"

"What is awareness / here, so ate, so close to night?" - from "Ward"

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dan Chiasson is a talented poet. But some of the poems in this first collection feel too clever and, with the overload of references to say Horace, pretentious. Though the poems are well written, at times, I wasn't compelled to read on.

[Kent · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the way Chaisson makes observation of the world or others a method of discovering more about the speaker.

[l · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cicada, Paul 1:13, Visit, Deer, Anonymous Bust of a Man c. A.D. 100 & One are all lovely.

[Holly Fortune · Rating 4 out of 5]

"There's just no winning in this life, is there?" - Brandon Lee Deleon as I contemplated what I would write in this review textbox.