-
Adventures in Reading 2023
PART ONE: GOING LONG After Doctor Faustus defeated me last year, I developed a low-level psychic hum, an unease around a readerly question: could I still go long? I mean Don Quixote long; the three-volume Autobiography of Mark Twain long; The Complete Poems of Heinrich Heine long (982 pages, English only, translated from the German by Hal Draper). And what about Gibbon’s Decline and Fall? What, for cryin’ out loud, about Proust? Well, it so happened I’d embarked on such an adventure in 2020 with the first volume of Rodrigo Fresán’s three-book novel (not a trilogy, but one vast Proustian novel),…Read More
-
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. Then there was Ted Hughes‘s Selected Translations (see Ann Skea’s review here), offering a taste of texts ancient…Read More
-
Two Items of Shameless Self-Promotion
I feel honored to have a poem in the latest, 17th anniversary issue of Pedestal Magazine. In good company, too, with many poets I admire: Kelli Russell Agodon, Joan Colby, John Bradley, Andrea Hollander, Jared Smith and more. Check it out! ~~~~~~~ Also, I wanted to steer y’all to Goodreads, where—with care and insight—Scots poet and fiction writer Jim Murdoch reviews The World As Is.
-
Poetry 2014 at BookBar
I started organizing First Saturday Poetry Readings at BookBar, a thriving indie bookstore in Northwest Denver, back in April 2014, and as the year nears its end I thought it would be useful to list everyone who has participated so far. Saturday, April 5: Andrea Hollander, reading from Landscape with Female Figure: New & Selected Poems, 1982–2012; Robert Cooperman, reading from Just Drive; and me myself, reading from the paperback reissue of Bed of Coals. Saturday, May 2: David Mason, then Poet Laureate of Colorado, and Chris Ransick, erstwhile Poet Laureate of Denver, in a Laureate Smackdown. David read…
-
Poetry Reading Photos
I had a great time reading with two excellent poets, Robert Cooperman and Andrea Hollander, first in Boulder (at Innisfree Poetry Bookstore) on April 4th and then in Denver (at BookBar) on April 5th. Just for grins, here some pictures. I’m only in one of them because I was the guy behind the camera for all the rest; the one I’m in was taken by Nicole Sullivan, presiding genius of BookBar. I should say that I read from two recent books. In Boulder from Marked Men, and in Denver from Bed of Coals. In both venues Bob read from his brand…Read More
-
Please Share with Friends in the Denver-Boulder Area…
Friday, April 4th and … [double click image to enlarge] … Saturday, April 5th. Join us for either or both! [double click image to enlarge]
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. 
