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The Deleted Mind
David Orr dressed for workas the NY Times Poetry Columnist I found this review online a few weeks back, in which David Orr focuses mostly on Robin Robertson‘s versions of poems by Tomas Tranströmer, gathered under the title The Deleted World. After pointing out numerous mistranslations*, Orr makes these odd statements: The Deleted World is pleasurable whether or not it’s a good translation of Tranströmer. […] Is that enough? In some ways, certainly — we read poetry for entertainment, not nutritional value.Read More
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Göransson and Blatny and Tics, Oh My!
Back on March 22 Johannes Göransson posted a poem by Ivan Blatny*, a Czech poet who defected to the West when the communists took over in 1948. Blatny lived from then on in England, until his death in 1990. Göransson posted the Blatny poem by way of recommending The Drug of Art: Selected Poems of Ivan Blatny, issued in 2007 by Ugly Duckling Presse; he declared the poem an example of the poet’s “greatness.” I read the poem and couldn’t fathom by what standard it could be called “great,” and said so.Read More
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Crossroads
If you’ve ever wondered if all this folderol is worth doing—blogging, I mean—consider above all the way it helps to open us up to people and views we might otherwise never encounter. How well these things serve as crossroads…. Case in point of : James Stotts, a recently added “follower” of this blog, has a blog of his own, where he muses on the Muse and issues of translation.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. 
