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Lover or Dunce?
From Heine‘s sequence Songs to Seraphine, translated by Emma Lazarus: Over all the quiet sea-shore Shadowing falls the hour of Hesper;Through the clouds the moon is breaking, And I hear the billows whisper.Read More
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Toward a Commonplace Book
Late last year I mentioned Max Brod’s biography of Heine. Today, hoping against hope to get my desk cleared off, I ran across it in a stack of books set aside for reshelving. But there were all these little post-it notes sticking out, making the book look like a tattered flag. I had meant to write something coherent about it, but since I have so much work in front of me I’d better settle for passing along the quotes I’ve marked.Read More
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The Best 10 Poetry Books of 2012
I’m talking, of course, about the books that came across my desk—a limiting factor because I almost never receive a “review copy.” (They’re always welcome, though!) I buy all but a handful of the books I read, so my reading is skewed by my own interests right up front. This unprofessional status frees me from the angst suffered by professional critics, according to Stephen Burt and Marjorie Perloff, as they fight to stay atop the wave of new poetry books that maliciously seeks to drown them.Read More
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The Stuff By Which We Live
Harry (Heinrich) Heine A quote here from Max Brod‘s biography of Harry (better known as Heinrich) Heine, Heine: The Artist in Revolt. It has about it the very strangeness that makes Heine, for me, more rewarding to read than the currently influential Friedrich Hölderlin: Now that I come to discuss [Heine’s] masterpieces it is no more than fitting that I should make due acknowledgment of the way in which he trampled over every inner and outer barrier and crushed all difficulties.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. 
