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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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My Year in Books (2017)
This year’s list is longer than usual, in part because I created two literature courses for the Professional Creative Writing program I direct at D.U.’s University College, a process that entailed lots of reading.Read More
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Poetry Month 2016: Ovid
Tristia, Book IV, 10 Who was this I you read, this trifler in tender passions? You want to know, posterity? Then attend:— Sulmo is my homeland, where ice-cold mountain torrents make lush our pastures, and Rome is ninety miles off. Here I was born, in the year both consuls perished at Antony’s hands; heir (for what that’s worth) to an ancient family, no brand-new knight promoted just yesterday for his wealth.Read More
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Happy Valentine’s Day!
Ovid’s Amores, 1:5 A hot afternoon: siesta-time. Exhausted, I lay sprawled across my bed.One window-shutter was closed, the other stood half-open, And the light came sifting throughAs it does in a wood. It recalled that crepuscular glow at sunset Or the trembling moment between darkness and dawn,Just right for a modest girl whose delicate bashfulness Needs some camouflage.Read More
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The Poetry of Dick Cheney
In Peter Green’s illuminating biography of Alexander the Great, Alexander of Macedon, 356-323 B.C., I ran across an eerily resonant passage concerning torture. The incident involved Alexander’s decision to bring down one of his most experienced generals, Parmenio, who had served under Alexander’s father Philip and whom he considered a rival, by framing Parmenio’s son Philotas for treason. Philotas was falsely charged with conspiring to murder Alexander, a crime whose penalty was death; but Alexander needed more in order to establish grounds for getting rid of Parmenio.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. 
