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Friday Notebook 03.02.12
Had I posted a Friday Notebook entry last week it would have comprised the first half of the quotations below. They are from Lawrence Durrell’s Constance, or Solitary Practices (1982), which I finished reading yesterday—in between various writing-for-hire and teaching-related activities. Constance is the third in Durrell’s final novel series, his “quincunx” of five novels. Herewith, a few extracts: Lawrence Durrell He wore his puritan life like a dead crow round his neck. * If foreigners did not exist the English would not know who to patronize.Read More
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Friday Notebook 02.03.12
No new poems this week, which got away from me in every sense.Read More
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Friday Notebook 01.27.12
Pastiche: After Bill Knott’sSelected Poems, 1960-2012* I like how Bill Knott blows his mouth harpblithely, as Stevens played his oboe. I callthem masters as I hum-blow my kazoo,spin these verses out of mere asidessigned sotto mano by deaf-mute twinsparted at birth, but years later deliveredinto each other’s care. Small wondermy poems veer from rancor to abjecttenderness, marking over the yearsa hidden rhythm like the heart of somegravedigger scooping vacancies outin the gathering dusk. Yet I (no Knott,no Stevens) play whatever my little giftallows, swaying in these masters’ shadows.Read More
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Friday Notebook 01.20.12
Driving a dark, wind-buffeted valley road last night, an idea came to me. One of those proliferation moments, like time-lapse of a sunflower unfolding. By the time I got to a place where I could scribble the following notes, though, the moment was gone. The traces of it are here, in these words, which now have the look of sea wrack on a beach. Nevertheless: The idea that no creature possesses consciousness. There is only an ability to process and display consciousness.Read More
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Friday Notebook 01.06.12
I launched into three new classes this week (the first time I’ve taught so many at one time), so my notebook is thin—but rich. It’s full of poems by Louis MacNeice, whose Collected Poems, 1925-1948 I’ve been reading with great pleasure. How I would love to have his facility with cadence and his ferocious clarity about the historical moment in which he found himself! Here are a few I especially admire.Read More
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Friday Notebook 12.30.11
Favorite Reading of 2011 I’ve wandered back through my notebook with eye toward making a list of books that most enlarged my perspective, tickled my fancy, and/or puzzled me in a productive way in 2011. Needless to say, the list is completely subjective and idiosyncratic. New books and old books are mixed together, and I highly recommend them all: Poetry Adonis, Adonis: Selected Poems (2010) A. R.Read More
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Friday Notebook 12.09.11
GRUMPY OLD MAN I feel for this roof ratthat all week turned uphis nose at my trapsand poisons, but finallycouldn’t avoid December’ssubzero cold: overnighthe crept out to meet itin the middle of our garage.Now—paws clenchedlike goathead pods,each eye a pinchof want—his faceis a mask of sacrifice.To what? Not the likesof me, I think, as I scoopthe rat into a paper bagwith a black dust pan,then dump it in the trash.Non omnis moriar, my ass.Read More
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Friday Notebook 11.25.11
Happy Birthday, M’Love! THE SECRET for Melody,her birthday Sun’s just up, stars hidden. Eachwith a hand on the other’s hip,the secret in hertouchingthe secret in me.Read More
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Friday Notebook 11.04.11
There is little in my notebook this week beyond a few stray quotes drawn from my reading and a raw reaction to one of Conrad DiDiodato’s most intriguing blog posts, which needs fleshing out. Let me post my notes on Conrad first: I reread Frank Samperi’s trilogy a few months ago, and it produced a kind of seething in my mind which I recognize in Conrad. His post suffers from a conflation of Language poetry (in the person of Silliman) and the Occupy Movement.Read More
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Friday Notebook 10.21.11
Merwin, Wright (Charles), Rengetsu, Issa, and … Hutchison? Thanks to Don Wentworth for letting my Earth-Boat into his harbor…. * * * I’ve been on a vacation from verse, it seems—stymied in my own work, disappointed in the four or five collections I’ve been eking away at for weeks (no need to name names; it may be just my mood, but is recent American poetry not withering from being over-fertilized by cleverness?). Anyway, I recently finished Lawrence Durrell’s Monsieur.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. 
