Richard Chess (poet)

Richard Chess (born 1953 in Los Angeles) is an American poet. He spent most of his childhood and youth in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. He is the author of four books of poetry, "Love Nailed to the Doorpost" (2017), Third Temple (2007), Chair in the Desert (2000), and Tekiah (1994). His poems have appeared in many journals as well as several anthologies, including Best American Spiritual Writing 2005 and Telling and Remembering: A Century of American-Jewish Poetry. He is a regular contributor to "Good Letters," the blog hosted by IMAGE: A JOURNAL OF ART, FAITH, MYSTERY.

He is professor of literature and language at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. He directs UNCA’s Center for Jewish Studies as well as UNCA’s Creative Writing Program. He has been a member of the low-residency MFA faculties at Warren Wilson College and Queens College. He served for a number of years as writer-in-residence at the Brandeis Bardin Institute in Simi Valley, California. He has also served as assistant director of The Jewish Arts Institute at Elat Chayyim, located at the Isabella Freedman Retreat Center. He also served for two years at poetry editor of Zeek: A Jewish Journal of Thought and Culture.

He is one of the leaders of UNC Asheville's contemplative inquiry initiative. Among other accomplishments of that initiative, is the annual Creating a Mindful Campus retreat/conference. He has been active in a variety of ways with the Center for Contemplative Mind and its Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education.

He lives in Asheville with his wife, Laurie.