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Legions of the Sun—Now Available
The companion anthology to “War of Words” is now available.Read More
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The Drama of War-Time Poetry
The performance of “War of Words” went off without a hitch last night in the Black Box Theater at the Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities. Having written the script, I was surprised by how moving it was—how the century-old poems sprang to life with such power and subtlety from the mouths of the five actors. Among the many enlivening elements were smoothly delivered accents—Hardy’s Dorset English, Apollinaire’s bon vivant playfulness, the taut Germanic sounds of Trakl, and the sly Chicagoan cadences of Carl Sandburg.Read More
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An Alert from the Poetry Early Warning System
This is far in advance, I know, but I’m hoping you’ll all put this event on your calendars then jump on those devices to snag tickets! The event is a performance by four Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities actors of a script I’ve written/assembled, which aims to flesh out the conflicting and conflicted reactions to the U.S. entry into WWI by twelve North American poets.Read More
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My Year in Books (2016)
As I did at the end of 2015, I’m laying out my past year’s book reading in the spirit of sharing the often haphazard journey of mind and heart that is my chief solitary pleasure. (There are other pleasures, of course, not solitary at all, but they don’t involve this particular addiction.) Again, the books listed below are ordered according to when I read them. I won’t comment on all of these titles because all of them are well worth reading.Read More
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A Mind of Winter
Pence Park, Indian Hills, Colo.December 20, 2013(double click to enlarge) THE SNOW MANby Wallace StevensOne must have a mind of winter To regard the frost and the boughs Of the pine-trees crusted with snow; And have been cold a long time To behold the junipers shagged with ice, The spruces rough in the distant glitter Of the January sun; and not to think Of any misery in the sound of the wind, In the sound of a few leaves, Which is the sound of the land Full of the same wind That is blowing in the same bare place For the listener, who listens in the snow, And, nothing himself, beholds Nothing that is…Read More
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Friday Notebook 01.27.12
Pastiche: After Bill Knott’sSelected Poems, 1960-2012* I like how Bill Knott blows his mouth harpblithely, as Stevens played his oboe. I callthem masters as I hum-blow my kazoo,spin these verses out of mere asidessigned sotto mano by deaf-mute twinsparted at birth, but years later deliveredinto each other’s care. Small wondermy poems veer from rancor to abjecttenderness, marking over the yearsa hidden rhythm like the heart of somegravedigger scooping vacancies outin the gathering dusk. Yet I (no Knott,no Stevens) play whatever my little giftallows, swaying in these masters’ shadows.Read More
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Wallace and Me
I was of three minds,Like a treeIn which there are three blackbirds. —Wallace Stevens, “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird“ When I read Conrad DiDiodato’s terse, intelligent political post this morning, the first thing that came to mind was a rousing “Yes!” There are brutal assaults on human rights going around the world that deserve our attention. The second thing that came to mind was the above stanza from Stevens’s famous poem. It brought with it the shadow of a doubt. There are always brutalities that deserve our attention.Read More
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Fireworks
By way of a preface to this volcanic post (text by my friend Bill Logan): A. A violent order is a disorder; andB. A great disorder is an order. TheseTwo things are one. (Pages of illustrations.) —Wallace Stevens, “Connoisseur of Chaos” + + + + + + + + + Thousands flee their homes and flights are grounded as Chilean volcano sends plumes of ash showering down.Read More
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Who Speaks to You?
I’m rereading Thomas McGrath’s magnificent Letter to an Imaginary Friend, in which he several times mentions Don Gordon. Don Gordon? A poet, it turns out, one of the many I’d never heard of until some other reader (usually another poet—in this case McGrath) brings them to my attention. Now I’ve discovered Don Gordon’s Collected Poems and am waiting for a check or two to clear so I can buy it.Read More
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On Imaginal Space
[This expands on my previous post, which it may help to read first.] I use the word “imaginal” to mean something far beyond the Webster’s definition, “of or relating to imagination, images, or imagery.” I mean it in the sense defined by the great scholar of Islamic mysticism Henry Corbin: …alam al-mithal, the world of the Image, mundus imaginalis: a world as ontologically real as the world of the senses and the world of the intellect, a world that requires a faculty of perception belonging to it, a faculty that is a cognitive function, a noetic value, as fully real…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. 
