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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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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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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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If You Happen to Be in or around San Francisco…
I just got a copy of this one, translated by my friend and mentor George McWhirter, who also edited (with Betty Ferber) Aridjis’s Eyes to See Otherwise (Ojos de otro mirar): Selected Poems 1960-2000 Aridjis is wonderful! And George is a sensitive and inventive translator, so I’m looking forward to reading it in Mexico come mid-April….Read More
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On The Incorrection
A couple of weeks ago I received my copy of Canadian poet George McWhirter’s new collection of poems, The Incorrection, and I’ve savored my way through it, first at one serial go, then dipping in and out like a sandpiper nibbling amidst sliding sea foam at the beach.* There is no way to summarize, coherently characterize, or anatomize this collection. First, it is large: 186 pages, or roughly three of what we’ve come to accept as average-in-length poetry books.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. 
