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A Place for the Genuine
If someone had told me in 1972, when I was 21 and about to graduate from the University of Northern Colorado, that one day a poem I had recently published would appear in an anthology alongside works by Thomas Merton, Charles Olson, Paul Blackburn, Gary Snyder, Diane Di Prima, Robert Kelly, Edward Dorn, Diane Wakoski, and—wait for it—Stephen King … well, I would have told that someone to take a hike.Read More
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The Voice of Cortázar
I discovered this on Matthew Stewart’s excellent blog Rogue Strands and was bowled over by it: the great Julio Cortázar reading his prose poem “El Aplastamiento de las Gotas.” Enjoy! Here’s Paul Blackburn‘s wonderful translation, from Cronopios and Famas: FLATTENING THE DROPS I don’t know, look, it’s terrible how it rains. It rains all the time, thick and grey outside, against the balcony here with big, hard, clabbering drops that go plaf and smash themselves like slaps, slop, one after the other, it’s tedious.Read More
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A Note on Paul Blackburn (and Swiss cheese)
For some reason certain links from my response to Ted Burke’s recent blog entry on Paul Blackburn vanished when I posted it, creating what you might call a Swiss-cheese post. So I’m posting it here in all its glory—i.e., with links intact. You can find the Blackburn poem I’m referring to, in its correct format, here. As Burke notes in his post, he didn’t reproduce Blackburn’s original spatial presentation…. *** I wonder if anyone reading this poem would seek out more of Blackburn’s work. For me it’s too studied, a fairly pedestrian attempt at allegory.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. 
