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Package Words
John Latta today notes: Pound, in 1956, to a BBC interviewer: “You cannot have literature without curiosity, and when a writer’s curiosity dies out he is finished—he can do all the tricks you like, but without curiosity you get no literature with any life in it.” (Pound’s next remark—mandatory reading for the insistently egregious purveyors of dopey labels: “Confusion is caused by package words. You call a man a Manichaean or a Bolshevik, or something or other, and never find out what he is driving at.Read More
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Weary-Hearted
Among my very first blog posts here was this one regarding Howard Nemerov. I was reminded of him again by Jim Culleny’s posting of Nemerov’s weary-hearted poem “The Life Cycle of the Common Man,” over at 3 Quarks Daily. It is a fine example of what Captain Ron would call “quietude.” I happen to like it. Why? Well, at least in part because it is anti-heroic, and for almost a decade we Americans have been operating in Heroic Mode–the jingoistic, charge-up-San-Juan-Hill mentality that not infrequently leads us to elect stupid leaders who lead us into stupid wars.Read More
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Wishing You a Joyful 2010!
It’s instructive at the end of any year to consider how far we have or haven’t come. But a single year is too brief to get a good sense of larger trends. Each of us knows how our own year went, and the media provides their own assessments, distorted by the currents of political partisanship and an overriding interest in ratings.Read More
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Some Poundian Nuggets
I’ve lifted a few quotables by Ezra Pound from Donald Hall‘s Paris Review interview with him, published in 1962 but linked a few days back by Al Filreis: [In response to Hall’s question about how Pound would plan a new canto. “Do you follow a special course of reading for each one?”] One isn’t necessarily reading. One is working on the life vouchsafed, I should think. I don’t know about method. The what is so much more important than how. * Technique is the test of sincerity.Read More
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Bacterio-Textual Flagellation
In Chapter 104 of Moby-Dick, Herman Melville puts these words into Ishmael’s mouth—but surely the sentiment is his own: In the mere act of penning my thoughts of this Leviathan, they weary me, and make me faint with the outreaching comprehensiveness of sweep, as if to include the whole circle of the sciences, and all the generations of whales, and men, and mastodons, past, present, and to come, with all the revolving panoramas of empire on earth, and throughout the whole universe, not excluding its suburbs.Read More
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On Theory
In a reply to a blog post by Lucia Perillo over at Harriet, I made a statement regarding writing from Theory vs. writing from Necessity, and John Shaw left a comment pointing out that my statement itself constituted a theory. I replied that I’d think about it and post further thoughts on the question later. Well, now is later, and here are my thoughts. Let me begin by attempting to define the word theory.Read More
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Poetry and the Poet’s Character
Reginald Shepherd, in a typically thoughtful and eloquent post, successfully critiques the notion that poets associated with Donald M. Allen’s seminal anthology, The New American Poets, wrote with political and/or social change as a goal. Unfortunately, as he reaches his conclusion, he uses his valuable analysis to make a puzzling claim: “If we were to judge works of art by their creators’ political positions, much would be ruled out of bounds.” On the surface this sounds admirably dispassionate; but the implications of his statement are troubling.Read More
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Duty and Delight
Thankfully, Bill Knott has resurrected his blog, where he has been posting links to those of his collections that he is making available through his storefront at Lulu.com (both as bound volumes and as free PDF downloads). He’s also reposting some good material from his old blog.Read More
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The Poetic-Critical Complex
This is an expansion of my response to a comment from Reginald Shepherd regarding one of my posts below: I’ve never developed a settled opinion on the relationship between poetic complexity and poetic durability. Do Shakespeare’s sonnets trump Michael Drayton’s because they are more complex? (They are more complex both conceptually and rhetorically.) And if so, are we to value Conrad Aiken above William Carlos Williams, for example, or Louis Zukofsky above Philip Levine? These are ultimately questions involving The Canon and the people in charge of it. I do not mean you and me, of course.Read More
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Poundacious
“‘WHANG—Boom—Boom—cast delicacy to the winds.’ Thus Ezra Pound in a letter to his father, urging the old man to help promote his first published collection.” In a related story, this squib from Bill Knott’s blog: PENNY WISE well alrightI grant youhe was a fascistahem antisemitism theer war and allI’m not defending thembut at leastyou’ve got to admitat least hemade the quatrains run on timeRead 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. 
