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Tiny Houses Spacious as Mansions
As with my previous Peter Handke post, I’m sharing enough of this remarkable collection by Samuel Menashe to give a sense of his work without giving away too much. I first encountered Menashe several years ago, when I volunteered to record books for the Colorado Talking Book Library. My first assignment was unenviable: a rather standard textbook focused on reading and interpreting poetry.Read More
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Immodestly Noted
Order on Amazon Succinct The Broadstone Anthology of Short Poems edited by Jonathan Greene and Robert West Broadstone Books 418 Ann Street Frankfort, Kentucky 40601-1929 My contributor’s copies came in the mail yesterday, and oh my—what are the odds that an off-the-main-map poet like me would find himself among such company? Somewhere between Anonymous and Zukofsky, within hailing distance of Archilochus, Arnold, Brandi, Bunting, Heaney, Kinnell, Niedecker, Rosenow, Villon, three Williamses (Jonathan, Miller, and William Carlos), and yes, Willie Yeats. This gave me a strange sense of elation, enhanced by the beauty of the physical book itself.Read More
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Surprised by That Woman
A proof copy of That Woman The other day the mail brought me a surprise: a slim chapbook of poems by the venerable Tom Montag entitled That Woman. The dedication says it all: To the memory of That Woman Lorine Niedecker 1903-1970 Each of these 13 poems is small in the same way that Niedecker’s poems are small: few words opening onto vistas of feeling and insight. They are aphoristic and imagistic by turns, and all inspired by Niedecker’s presence—written in response to walking with her, engaging her in conversation.Read More
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On Baker’s Stone Girl E-Pic
I’ve been struggling—let me admit it—to find a way to write about Ed Baker’s Stone Girl E-Pic. It’s a 515-page poetic adventure, the reading of which is like watching sparks thrown off by a fire: the fire’s below the rim of the firepit, so you can’t see it directly, but the climbing sparks, the waves of light and heat under a skyful of stars—this is the sensation Stone Girl produces.Read More
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A Noiseless Patient Poet
Far be it from me to diss Marjorie Perloff, an often illuminating poetry critic. But when Jerome Rothenberg offered up this extract from her introduction to some German translations of Rae Armantrout‘s poems, a strange feeling crept over me: the sensation that she was slipping, I mean. Perloff, typically precise to a fault, here becomes a slightly vague promoter of a poet she’s a fan of. To wit: [U]nlike Williams (or Levertov), Armantrout was never a poet of concrete particulars: from the first, her minimalist lyrics were breaking the Williams mold.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. 
