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A Squirt of the Salve of Humor
I’ve ranted here before about poetry written by grad students for other grad students—you know, that fragmentary, theory-ridden, wink-wink nudge-nudge poetry invoking the mouldering corpses of Wittgenstein and Derrida as if their ideas had not long ago been zombified. Well, it turns out that this kind of poetry has its analog in disciplines other than the language arts.Read More
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The Grave of Western Civ
Psych! But honestly—Steve Halle of the Fluid/Exchange blog says this work by Holms Troelstrup is “exciting” (he doesn’t say why). Maybe Halle is simply depressed and is thus excited by whatever takes the art of poetry further into inanity. Halle is also excited (again he doesn’t say why) by this interesting blog entry by Robert Archambeau. Archambeau writes about poetry vs. prose, conflating “not-poetry” with prose as if Aristotle had never addressed the issue.Read More
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Dissenting from “The Debate”
I jumped into Seth Abramson’s attempt to formulate new terms for what he sees as distinct types of poetry in the current American litscape—alternatives to “School of Quietude” and “Post-Avant,” the numbing dualism favored by so-called language poet Ron Silliman.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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Buddhism, Darwinism, Avant-Garde
In an earlier post I gave myself permission to post fragments. So here goes…. ===== I’ve been reading the new book by my favorite philosopher, Buddhist thinker David R. Loy. Money, Sex, War, Karma: Notes for a Buddhist Revolution pulls together shorter pieces written for magazines, and the venue seems to have encouraged great concentration and great simplicity in Loy, who is typically (anyway) capable of moving from the just-shy-of-obscure to flashes of brilliance with ease.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. 
