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Bacon Flavored Erasure Poetics
I’m sitting in bed at the moment next to my lovely wife, who’s reading a holiday catalog. She is fixated on a spread peddling bacon-themed gifts. Bacon-strip ties. Tee shirts imprinted with images of bacon. Bacon Christmas ornaments. No shit. She remarks, “This is the most moronic thing I’ve ever seen. Who is this stuff aimed at?” I don’t answer because I’m engaged in something even more idiotic. I’m reading about a book called Gentle Reader!. It is a product generated by three contemporary poets through a process of erasing passages from certain works of Romantic-era writers.Read More
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Who Speaks to You?
I’m rereading Thomas McGrath’s magnificent Letter to an Imaginary Friend, in which he several times mentions Don Gordon. Don Gordon? A poet, it turns out, one of the many I’d never heard of until some other reader (usually another poet—in this case McGrath) brings them to my attention. Now I’ve discovered Don Gordon’s Collected Poems and am waiting for a check or two to clear so I can buy it.Read More
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The Greatness Debate
This is a reply to Adam Fieled’s excellent post, in which he responds to Amy King’s challenge to define “greatness.” Her post, I have to add, was occasioned by a New York Times essay by David Orr, “The Great(ness) Game”—a laughable piece of pseudo-intellectual drivel. Orr’s essay has succeeded, however, in spurring all sorts of commentary among poetry bloggers. It just happens that Fieled’s and King’s got my head buzzing like a late spring hive. So, by addressing Adam here, I’m also addressing Amy and David Orr and anybody else who’s been pondering the issue of poetic greatness.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. 
