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Adventures in Reading 2021
It was another pandemic year, in some ways more challenging than the first. There was a sense of fraying in the fabric of social life, work life, personal focus (my poetry journal full of fragments that I’m not postmodern enough to throw down on pages and pretend that they cohere as poems), the persistent floating anxiety. Among the various costumes that relief arrived in were books, of course.Read More
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H. R. Hays and Trump Nation
When I read this morning that Donald Trump’s “pep rally” tonight in Mobile, Alabama is being moved to the 43,000-seat Ladd-Peebles because 35,000 tickets to the event have been distributed, this poem by H. R. Hays came to mind. It first appeared in 1969, I believe, in George Hitchcock’s Kayak magazine. THE OLD WOMAN Who sits in her yard Every day Beside a flag Tied to a stick Is trying to Nail down America. She is afraid It will take off From under her feet, Piloted by long-haired Chinese astronauts.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. 
