Chess picks right pieces at reading

Author: Dana Walters

Poet Richard Chess gave a reading on Friday, March 5 from a selection of poems, all centering around a Jewish motif. A Professor of Literature and Language at the University of North Carolina at Asheville, Chess has published three books and numerous poems in journals and anthologies. Author Cynthia Ozick praised his second book of poetry, "Chair in the Desert," saying, "Here is the language of life - life conditioned, bound, tangled, yet illumined and clarified by a transcendent Eye. One reads these shiningly honest lines and feels their blessing." Praise of the poet often cites his ability to create an honest portrait of the tension and blending between modernity and Jewish religious traditions, to which he is an avid devotee.

Fulton Professor of Humanities and Director of Literary Studies Stephen Donadio introduced Chess, calling him a "legendary teacher" and explaining that his writing confronts the "overwhelming challenges made manifest" in the Jewish themes running through quotidian life. In the poems Chess read on Friday, this ability to merge the two seemingly opposing concepts - of the ancient, which lies in the Biblical tradition, and of today's world - came through in a dynamic and effortless way.

Reading in a convivial and friendly style, Chess brought life even to his most serious work. He started with the more contemplative and solemn poems, such as "And on the Seventh Day," which reflected the "creative process" and the feeling of "losing control of creation" that he said is both "thrilling and terrifying." But his most striking and honest poem was called "Third Temple." Musing over what today's people would sacrifice if the third temple were to be built, Chess explained that he would contribute his beloved dog, and while he made numerous apologies for how little this would mean to the Lord, the adoration that flowed from his lips as he spoke about his pet made the end line all the more sobering and shocking. Speaking of preparing his dog Leon for the sacrifice, he concluded with, "Surely, the priests will marvel at his fine coat / just before they slit, / surely, because we are a good, kind, loving people / they will sing his favorite psalm / as blood drains from him, as his coat flames." While hypothetical - we are not yet in the time of the third temple - Chess's ability to evoke the trials that confront religious thought in today's age is a blessing to those who cannot manifest them in such eloquent verse.

While the two poems above are examples of Chess's more serious work, his more comfortable attitude undoubtedly lies in the spirit of a laugh and a smile. His reading was accompanied by a tiny grin folding up the corners of his lips, adding a genial and neighborly touch to his words. Speaking on subjects as well-known to the modern Jew as the importance of a bagel - which he believes holds a truth above even the economy - and advice taken from Leviticus that a mother can use to scold her child for an unwholesome piercing, Chess effervesced a sparkling jocundity that allowed his audience to fall swiftly into the nestling palm of his poetry. By the end of his reading, all fell into adoration with the jolly figure of Chess, and the temptation to invite the story-filled character to the next Shabbat dinner or lox brunch was overwhelming, even to the gentile.