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Adventures in Reading 2018
Old Reading Room at BookBar (Photo: Tricia M.) Let me admit up front that I’ve included half a dozen books here that were read as part of my work with the Professional Creative Writing program at University College. But they all turned out to be worthwhile reading experiences. Even those I couldn’t quite connect with—Juan Gelman’s The Poems of Sidney West, Ben Lerner’s Angle of Yaw, and Adonis’s powerful Concerto al-Quds, which is also recondite and nakedly anguished by turns—continue to haunt me. This is usually an early indicator of re-readings in the offing.Read More
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My Year in Books (2016)
As I did at the end of 2015, I’m laying out my past year’s book reading in the spirit of sharing the often haphazard journey of mind and heart that is my chief solitary pleasure. (There are other pleasures, of course, not solitary at all, but they don’t involve this particular addiction.) Again, the books listed below are ordered according to when I read them. I won’t comment on all of these titles because all of them are well worth reading.Read More
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A Fond Adieu to Yves Bonnefoy
Yesterday I happened to finish Ben Lerner‘s crafty and subtle monograph, The Hatred of Poetry, and a few hours later, while Lerner’s essay was still effervescing in my brain, discovered that Yves Bonnefoy had died a day before (Friday, July 1), in Paris. The first reports I saw (Radio France and the BBC) were sketchy and perfunctory. A more in-depth obituary appears in Le Monde, though I had to suffer through a Google translation to read it.Read More
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David Giannini: An Interview (Part Two)
[Today’s post concludes my interview with David Giannini. Jump back to Part One for a brief introduction and a substantial bio-/bibliography of the poet.] * * * TPB: Given your inclination toward the poetic sequence and the mixing of verse and prose, do you see yourself as part of the Modernist project? Not to apply labels or anything. Just curious about how you see yourself within “the tribe” that Eliot spoke of….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. 
