-
Ekleksographia #2
Linh Dinh has a short but packed poem in the new issue of Ekleksographia, a imaginally charged online lit mag.Read More
-
The Greatness Debate
This is a reply to Adam Fieled’s excellent post, in which he responds to Amy King’s challenge to define “greatness.” Her post, I have to add, was occasioned by a New York Times essay by David Orr, “The Great(ness) Game”—a laughable piece of pseudo-intellectual drivel. Orr’s essay has succeeded, however, in spurring all sorts of commentary among poetry bloggers. It just happens that Fieled’s and King’s got my head buzzing like a late spring hive. So, by addressing Adam here, I’m also addressing Amy and David Orr and anybody else who’s been pondering the issue of poetic greatness.Read More
-
Hello, Zeitgeist
There’s a rather amazing new Harriet post by Martin Earl that addresses issues similar to those that Adam Fieled has been admirably wrestling with (see my previous post), but from a more analytical perspective.Read More
-
Poetry and (the) Depression
Over at Stoning the Devil, Adam Fieled has put up two excellent posts in a row, both inspired by our tanking economy. Today’s is essentially a meditation on money, especially on the fact that poets can’t make a living from their work. In a Depression, which Fieled thinks is imminent or with us already, this not being paid becomes more than an academic issue.Read More
-
Open and Closed, Part 5
Here is another handful of poems by someone firmly exiled to the so-called “School of Quietude” by Ron Silliman and others of his persuasion: the former U.S. Poet Laureate, Ted Kooser. In the comment stream to one of my previous posts, in which I wrote that William Stafford and Ted Kooser “bring a flush of fury to Ron Silliman’s bearded cheeks.” Silliman replied, “I can’t imagine ever feeling ‘fury’ at Kooser or Stafford. That’s like getting angry at cold oatmeal.” You’ll have to decide for yourself if “cold oatmeal” describes the following poems.Read More
-
Openness Contra Gated Communities
Over at “Stoning the Devil,” Adam Fieled has chosen to re-engage via comments on the poems I’ve posted by Philip Levine and Adrienne Rich. He takes me to task for not explicating the poems, but as I told him in his comment stream, “I have no intention of explicating the poems, although I may comment on them in a general way as I continue to post more examples.Read More
-
Open and Closed, Part 4
This continues my posting of poetry by poets on Ron Silliman’s “School of Quietude” list, which you can find in this previous post. Today’s poet is Adrienne Rich, who long ago made my personal list of poets who should get the Nobel Prize. It’s hard, I must add, to represent the scope, subtlety and power of her work, in part because she is formally adventurous, and in part because she has increasingly worked in long sequences—and it felt unfair to compare those to Mark Young’s minimalist poems, which Adam Fieled put forward as representative of strong post-avant writing.Read More
-
Open and Closed, Part 3
Evidently Adam Fieled took offense at my earlier addition to our ongoing discussion about so-called School of Quietude poets vs. so-called post-avant poets. I’ve tendered an apology in his comment stream, because I surely didn’t mean to hurt his feelings. As for my failures in the substance of our discussion, he’s right in calling me on the fact that I did not provide him with examples of poems from “my tradition” that I would be “willing to vouch for.” I promised him I would begin doing so, and this is the first post in that process.Read More
-
Open and Closed, Part 2: Another Response to Adam Fieled
As readers of this blog know, I’ve been in dialogue with Adam Fieled of his Stoning the Devil over issues of poetics, and this post is a reply to his latest foray in that dialogue. Adam has adopted a convenient format that uses numbered items to distinguish one issue from another, which I like too—and so I’ll use it here.Read More
-
Open and Closed: A Response to Adam Fieled
Adam Fieled over at Stoning the Devil is, in my humble estimation, one of the most thoughtful post-avant partisans on the Web. When I respectfully threw down a gauntlet in his comment stream, he thoughtfully took it up in a post that’s useful in a number of ways, not least in its listing of poets in the post-avant ballpark (at least by Adam’s lights). Best of all, he presents two poems by Mark Young as examples of what he sees as characteristic and strong post-avant work.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. 
