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Walt Whitman Spins in His Grave
First book awards are apt to be contentious. The major ones—Yale Younger Poets, the APR/Honickman, Cave Canem, the Walt Whitman—produce winners that are as often ignored as praised. In poetry, everything is arguable. But the 2013 Academy of American Poets’ Walt Whitman Award winner is especially distressing. Judge John Ashbery chose Chris Hosea‘s Put Your Hands In, which has been issued by Louisiana State University Press. I have to confess that I haven’t read the book and will not, based on the odious excerpts from it published in the Spring-Summer 2014 issue of American Poets.Read More
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Krysl’s “Sutra”
Marilyn Krysl A beautiful poem by poet, fiction writer, and journalist Marilyn Krysl just went up on the Academy of American Poets Web site. It’s called “Sutra,” and it opens with these lines: Looking back now, I see I was dispassionate too often, dismissing the robin as common, and now can’t remember what robin song sounds like. Oh yes. I know that particular sense of regret.Read More
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Hapax Legomenon Redux
Harriet celebrates Poetry Month with this hilarious post by con man Kenny Goldsmith, in which he makes good on his promise of “uncreative writing” by quoting a vacuous, jargon-ridden exercise in what passes for criticism in the back alleys of academe. “Conceptual writing signaled the end of the era of individual voice,” opines Ms. Johanna Drucker. “Poetics of the swarm, mind-melding writing, poiesis as the hapax legomenon of the culture?” (No, that question mark is not an typo. It is in Drucker’s text and is as mysterious there as it is here.Read More
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Parallel Universe
All right. Take my temperature. Check my pulse. I seem to have awakened in a parallel universe where dog droppings are served as pâté. Or maybe I’m just in a curmudgeonly mood.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. 
