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“Thread of the Real” — Celebrating George McWhirter’s Griffin Prize
I wanted to celebrate my friend and mentor, George McWhirter, with a post on the Griffin Prize Facebook page. But the site limits the number of line returns to 100, and my tribute poem has too many to post there. SO … I’m posting it here and linking to it from the Griffin Prize Facebook page. I should say that this is the title poem of my collection Thread of the Real, but it is, above all, a tribute to George.Read More
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McWhirter Wins the 2024 Griffin Poetry Prize
In the wake of my earlier post regarding my mentor George McWhirter’s arrival on the 2024 Griffin Poetry Prize short list, there is this extraordinarily wonderful news from last night’s event in Toronto: George McWhirter wins $78,000 for the international prize for his translation of Self-Portrait in the Zone of Silence, written in Spanish by Mexican poet Homero Aridjis (New Directions Publishing).Read More
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Bristlecone Magazine Returns!
After a hiatus in which the editors of Bristlecone worked to re-imagine the magazine’s PDF/blog format, the new web-based May 2024 issue is available at https://www.bristleconemag.com. In this issue you’ll find new work by Lila Bear, Kathleen Cain, Robert Cooperman, Megan de Guzman, David Anthony Martin, George McWhirter, Thomas Reeve, Linda Whittenberg, and Jon Kelly Yenser. We’re excited not only because of the issue’s powerful poetry but because the new format allows readers to comment on the poems. Comments will be curated so that published observations serve both the poets and other readers.Read More
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My Poetic Mentor Makes the Griffin Prize Shortlist. Huzzah!
Vancouver poet and translator George McWhirter makes shortlist for $130K Griffin Poetry Prize CBC Books · Posted: Apr 17, 2024 8:47 AM MDT | Last Updated: April 18 Canadian translator George McWhirter is on the shortlist for the 2024 Griffin Poetry Prize. (Mark Van Mannen) Canadian translator George McWhirter has made the shortlist for the Griffin Poetry Prize. He is recognized for Self-Portrait in the Zone of Silence, which was translated from Spanish and written by the great Mexican poet Homero Aridjis. The $130,000 prize is the world’s largest prize for a single book of poetry written in or translated into English. Read the full story here.Read More
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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).Read More
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Legions of the Sun—Now Available
The companion anthology to “War of Words” is now available.Read More
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My Year in Books (2017)
This year’s list is longer than usual, in part because I created two literature courses for the Professional Creative Writing program I direct at D.U.’s University College, a process that entailed lots of reading.Read More
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A Place for the Genuine
If someone had told me in 1972, when I was 21 and about to graduate from the University of Northern Colorado, that one day a poem I had recently published would appear in an anthology alongside works by Thomas Merton, Charles Olson, Paul Blackburn, Gary Snyder, Diane Di Prima, Robert Kelly, Edward Dorn, Diane Wakoski, and—wait for it—Stephen King … well, I would have told that someone to take a hike.Read More
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Adios, José Emilio Pacheco
José Emilio Pacheco—poet, writer,essayist, and translator—in his library. A few days ago I heard from Angela Mairead Coid, wife of my poetic mentor George McWhirter, that on Friday, January 24, the Mexican literary giant José Emilio Pacheco had fallen and struck his head, but appeared to be in no pain; he could not be awakened the next day, however, and passed away the day after—Sunday—from cardiac arrest. Pacheco was 74.Read More
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Adios, Chinua Achebe
Chinua Achebe I have little to add to the many obits, remembrances, assessments, and well deserved encomiums that have appeared over the past days in reaction to the death of Chinua Achebe. He was a towering figure, a genuinely courageous artist and activist. I read his great novel Things Fall Apart in 1973 after discovering that my mentor, the Irish-Canadian poet George McWhirter, had shared the first Commonwealth Poetry Prize (1972) with Achebe. George won for his first collection, Catalan Poems, and Achebe for his first collection, Beware, Soul Brother (his Collected Poems appeared in 2004).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. 
