-
Amber Adams, Jenny Molberg, and Emily Pérez Reading to Welcome August!
This note arrived I my inbox this morning, from poet Emily Pérez: If you, like me, are not quite ready for August, here’s something to help you turn the calendar page: I’ll be reading with Colorado’s own amazing Amber Adams and Missouri’s masterful Jenny Molberg at Counterpath on August 1. Jenny is coming to town to launch her new book: The Court of No Record and we’re ready to celebrate. We’ll be at Counterpath Gallery (7935 E 14th Ave, Denver) on Tuesday, August 1st from 6:30 – 7:30 PM on August 1.Read More
-
Meet Three Fine Poets @ Tattered Cover/Colfax
-
Stirring the Fire: Artistic Wisdom from Denise Levertov
I’ve lately been rereading Denise Levertov—always a refreshing pleasure. Here’s the poetic preface to her 1959 collection, her third book, With Eyes at the Back of Our Heads. The poem is a translation from the Spanish poem “El Artista,” which itself is a translation from the original Toltec poem, “Toltecatl,” written in Nahuatl probably between the 10th and 12th centuries CE. THE ARTIST The artist: disciple, abundant, multiple, restless. The true artist: capable, practicing, skillful; maintains dialogue with his heart, meets things with his mind.Read More
-
Good Luck to Jake Adam York, Too Late
As an admirer of Jake Adam York‘s poetry, clear-eyed lyrics springing from a humane and questing spirit, I’m happy to pass on this wonderful piece shepherded into the New York Times Magazine by Natasha Trethewey, whose term as U.S. Poet Laureate recently ended. The poem is drawn from Jake’s posthumously published collection Abide, which is a finalist for the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award. The winner will be announced at the NBCC Awards Ceremony on March 12. Absurd as it seems, I wish Jake good luck. Luck is often too late in coming to poets.Read More
-
Just Listen: A radio interview/reading by Robert Cooperman
My good friend Bob Cooperman reads from his collection of cabbie poems Just Drive on Colorado Public Radio.Read More
-
Bill Tremblay Reading from Magician’s Hat at BookBar June 7th
-
From the Doldrums
From a brief memoir that I’ll be every Birder will want to read: At one point, my in-laws gave their daughter (my wife) a sum of money, intended as start-up capital for me to open a Chinese restaurant – hoping that a business would help support my family. But my wife refused the money. When I found out about this exchange, I stayed up several nights and finally decided: This dream of mine is not meant to be. I must face reality. Afterward (and with a heavy heart), I enrolled in a computer course at a nearby community college.Read More
-
American Society: What Poets See
I’m happy to say that I have three poems in a new anthology from FutureCycle Press called American Society: What Poets See. It’s cleverly put together: Poets appear alphabetically with all their poems together; but a secondary table of contents groups poems by theme, and using it yields the heady experience of hopscotching through the collection. (I can’t wield that word without a nod to the great Julio Cortázar, whose Hopscotch broke this structural ground in 1963.) Here are the groups the editors, David Chorlton and Robert S.Read More
-
Dilatory (With Apologies to Bob Arnold)
This post’s title is a word I’ve always wanted to use but not in relation to myself. Oh well. Last year I picked up an extraordinary book, Bob Arnold’s “long Green Mountain poem” Yokel, read it through at one long sitting (unintentionally—my To Do list went unchanged that day), and then hopscotched through it with increasing delight over the next couple of weeks. I meant to write about it, but my To Do list finally took over my life.Read More
-
Mexico with Michael Hogan
I’ve been silent, more or less, for awhile now. Here and in my notebook, that is. I could blame it on scraping to sustain a livable income. Or on the demands of adjunct teaching. But the truth is I’m sick of my own voice. I mean, more precisely, my opinions. We all know which orifice an opinion is like because we all have one. Still, I have this stack of books read entirely, or finished, or merely begun in Mexico, during my wife Melody’s annual Yoga Fiesta.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. 
