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Adventures in Reading 2019
2019 was a challenging year—deaths, health scares, creative dysfunction—but as ever, reading sustained me. I finally read Juan Rulfo‘s classic Pedro Páramo—one of those books that makes me wonder why I waited so long. It’s a visceral, phantasmagorical novel with all the psychic force of Greek tragedy. I knew that it is widely considered the first fully-realized instance of magical realism, and I can see how unlikely it would be for us to have One Hundred Years of Solitude without Rulfo’s influence.Read More
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Poetry Month 2016: Carol Ann Duffy
Talent This is the word tightrope. Now imagine a man, inching across it in the space between our thoughts. He holds our breath. There is no word net. You want him to fall, don’t you? I guessed as much; he teeters but succeeds. The word applause is written all over him. [From Standing Female Nude] ~ From the publisher’s Web site: This outstanding first collection introduced Carol Ann Duffy’s impressive gifts and the broad range of her interests and style. The poems are fresh, skilful, passionate.Read More
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Homage to Edwin Morgan
Poppy & Me No kidding: I was sitting there reading and listening to “The Loch Ness Monster’s Song” by the just-passed-on Scottish bard Edwin Morgan when I noticed that Poppy, our Min-Pin Chihuahua, was staring wide-eyed at my laptop. She tilted her head this way and that through the entire performance, like any attentive listener at a poetry reading.Read More
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Exemplary
I’m a fan of Britain’s first female poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy, but who knew she would be setting such a fine example for PoBiznesspeople everywhere? Poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy has announced a new prize celebrating poetry in all its forms, following her first audience with the Queen today. Funded by Duffy’s donation of her yearly £5,750 stipend as laureate to the Poetry Society, the prize, known as the Ted Hughes award for new work in poetry, will be awarded annually throughout Duffy’s 10-year term as laureate.Read More
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The Sound of the Poet
Poetry International Web has added a page to its vast and wonderful site called The Sound of the Poet. You can hear a variety of voices, including Carol Ann Duffy, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Wole Soyinka, and Pablo Neruda (reading “The Heights of Machu Picchu”).Read More
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A Self-Respecting Poet Laureate
Congratulations to Carol Ann Duffy on becoming England’s first female poet laureate. The Guardian has an oddly inspiring gallery picturing Duffy and 20 of her predecessors. Given the uneven quality of laureate choices in the past, it needs to be said that this honor is well deserved.Read More
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Duffy’s Range
Two extremes from Carol Ann Duffy‘s The World’s Wife: Mrs Darwin 7 April 1852 Went to the Zoo.I said Him—Something about that Chimpanzee over there reminds me of you. And… Pilate’s Wife Firstly, his hands—a woman’s. Softer than mine,with pearly nails, like shells from Galilee.Indolent hands. Camp hands that clapped for grapes.Their pale, mothy touch made me flinch. Pontius. I longed for Rome, home, someone else. When the Nazareneentered Jerusalem, my maid and I crept out,bored stiff, disguised, and joined the frenzied crowd.I tripped, clutched the bridle of an ass, looked up and there he was. His face? Ugly.Read More
Joseph Hutchison, Colorado Poet Laureate 2014-2019, has published 20 collections of poems and edited or co-edited three poetry anthologies. He currently directs two master’s-level programs for University College at the University of Denver: Professional Creative Writing and Arts & Culture Management. Joe lives with his wife, Melody Madonna, in the mountains southwest of Denver, Colorado, the city where he was born. 
