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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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Two Items of Shameless Self-Promotion
I feel honored to have a poem in the latest, 17th anniversary issue of Pedestal Magazine. In good company, too, with many poets I admire: Kelli Russell Agodon, Joan Colby, John Bradley, Andrea Hollander, Jared Smith and more. Check it out! ~~~~~~~ Also, I wanted to steer y’all to Goodreads, where—with care and insight—Scots poet and fiction writer Jim Murdoch reviews The World As Is.Read More
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My Year in Books (2015)
I, too, dislike “best books” lists except when they bring me news of books I want to read but somehow overlooked, which is surprisingly seldom. Over 60-plus years of reading, beginning, as I recall, with Little Golden Books, I’ve developed enough self-awareness to guess correctly about 70 percent of time which books will bring me that mixture of pleasure and revelation that is my particular addiction.Read More
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Bed of Coals Reviewed In-Depth by Jim Murdoch
Jim Murdoch I’m excited to report that Scottish poet and fiction writer Jim Murdoch, whose incisive essays appear regularly on his piquantly titled blog The Truth About Lies, has written an extensive essay on my own Bed of Coals. It is the most in-depth writing that anyone has done on any of my work, and I appreciate it especially because the structure of Coals admittedly makes it a challenge for readers, and Mr. Murdoch tackles that challenge with lots of close, insightful reading.Read More
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The Art that Dare Not Speak Its Name
I hadn’t heard of British poet Dick Jones until Jim Murdoch mentioned him on his blog. Now I’ve ordered Jones’s Ancient Days: Selected Poems, just when my bank account says I shouldn’t be ordering anything. You might experience the same thing if you read this post on Dick Jones’s blog, which Murdoch quoted on his. Here’s a taste: A proposition: Poetry is the art that dare not speak its name. Consider. You’re at a dinner party. You fall into conversation with your neighbour whilst awaiting the last course. You get respective jobs out of the way.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. 
