Richard Chess
poet, writer, contemplative educator
About Rick————————
RICHARD CHESS is the author of four books of poetry, Love Nailed to the Doorpost (University of Tampa Press 2017, Tekiah (University of Georgia Press 1996; republished by University of Tampa Press 2000); Chair in the Desert (University of Tampa Press 2000); and Third Temple (University of Tampa Press 2006). His poems have appeared in Best American Spiritual Writing 2005, Telling and Remembering: A Century of American Jewish Poetry, and The Bloomsbury Anthology of Contemporary American Jewish Poetry.
He is Professor Emeritus at UNC Asheville, where for more than three decades he taught courses in English/Creative Writing and Jewish Studies. In the last decade of his career, he was a leader of UNC Asheville’s Contemplative Inquiry Initiative. He integrated a range of contemplative practices into his courses, including courses on Poetry as a Spiritual Practice and Spiritual Autobiographies.
“The great gift of Richard Chess’s poetry is that it reminds us of the earthiness of language—its sounds and shapes, the way it bears the marks of history and geography.”
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