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Adventures in Reading 2019
2019 was a challenging year—deaths, health scares, creative dysfunction—but as ever, reading sustained me. I finally read Juan Rulfo‘s classic Pedro Páramo—one of those books that makes me wonder why I waited so long. It’s a visceral, phantasmagorical novel with all the psychic force of Greek tragedy. I knew that it is widely considered the first fully-realized instance of magical realism, and I can see how unlikely it would be for us to have One Hundred Years of Solitude without Rulfo’s influence.Read More
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Advice from Ko Un
Buy at Indiebound SOME ADVICEby Ko Un (tr. Brother Anthony of Taizé and Lee Sang-Wha) Poemsblock the path for better poems.Poemsblock the path for subsequent poems. Poems, poems, my blue poems! Escape somehow from the history of poetry,from fashions of poetry,from a hundred years of poetic authority. Be born trembling, wild and alone.Read More
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Human-Made Poems
Here are three of favorite poets reading at the 2006 Dodge Poetry Festival. All of them write what Linh Dinh calls “human-made poems.” Enjoy! More of Linda Hogan on The Perpetual Bird here. More of Taslima Nasreen on The Perpetual Bird here.Read More
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Mexico Books 2008: Installment 2
Ten Thousand Lives, by Ko Un. Introduction by Robert Hass. In Mexico I read this other book by Korean poet and former Buddhist monk Ko Un. It’s a selection of poems from his vast project, Maninbo, or Ten Thousand Lives. After several years as a leader of the resistance movement against the Korean Republic’s military dictatorships in the 1970s, Ko Un was imprisoned four times, enduring torture and extreme deprivation.Read More
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Mexico Books 2008: Installment 1
I’m finally getting around to mentioning some of the books I read in Mexico back in May. Please indulge me. Just thinking about them brings back the thrash and occasional boom of blue green Caribbean waves on that raw sugar sand…. What?: 108 Zen Poems, by Ko Un. Foreword by Allen Ginsberg. Introduction by Thich Nhat Hanh. The Korean poet and former Buddhist monk Ko Un is one of the great masters of the playful insight.Read More
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A Response to Christian Bök
Here’s a response to Christian Bök that I posted on the Poetry Foundation’s Harriet blog, for what it’s worth….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. 
