-
Contra Manifestos
I use Google Reader to stream posts from the too-many blogs I follow, which is good because some bloggers post something maybe a little too piquant or politically incorrect and then delete their entries—but Google Reader displays them anyway. The post is gone when you click through, but the original is there in Reader. Bill Knott, who I admire a lot, does the post/delete routine fairly frequently.Read More
-
Václav Havel on Recent American Poetry: A Travesty
I was reading along in Václav Havel‘s historic essay “The Power of the Powerless” when I came to a passage that made my poetic antenna hum. I realized that Havel’s analysis of what he called “post-totalitarian” Czechoslovakia, published in October 1978, includes a pretty fair description of American poetry at this moment. I don’t by any stretch of the imagination mean to trivialize Havel’s essay, which galvanized the dissident community and ultimately helped to bring down the Czech regime. That said, I can’t resist.Read More
-
Rejecting the Personal
The tireless Juliana Spahr and Joshua Clover are mounting an experimental seminar they’re calling “The 95 Cent Skool.” (Details here.) Part of their description asserts the following: Our concerns in these six days begin with the assumption that poetry has a role to play in the larger political and intellectual sphere of contemporary culture, and that any poetry which subtracts itself from such engagements is no longer of interest. “Social poetics” is not a settled category, and does not necessarily refer to poetry espousing a social vision.Read More
-
Among the Theoristas
I was surprised to see this quotation on Al Filreis’s blog: Reading is usually taught in school so as to walk hand in hand with assimilation. And it is at its most oppressive when taught through principles of absolute meaning. Beginning reading exercises tend to emphasize meaning as unambiguous and singular; the word ‘duck’ in the primer means the bird, not the verb. Further, as a learned and regulated act, reading socializes readers not only into the process of translating symbol into word with a one-to-one directness, but also into specific social relationships.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. 
