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Adventures in Reading 2019
2019 was a challenging year—deaths, health scares, creative dysfunction—but as ever, reading sustained me. I finally read Juan Rulfo‘s classic Pedro Páramo—one of those books that makes me wonder why I waited so long. It’s a visceral, phantasmagorical novel with all the psychic force of Greek tragedy. I knew that it is widely considered the first fully-realized instance of magical realism, and I can see how unlikely it would be for us to have One Hundred Years of Solitude without Rulfo’s influence.Read More
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Ting-A-Ling!
I am finally getting around to reading Kurt Vonnegut’s last novel Timequake, which I have put off reading because it leaves me only one Vonnegut title I haven’t read. I try not to read everything of a writer I love. An unread bit of oeuvre allows me to pretend that the writer hasn’t left us. Anyway, in Chapter 14 of Timequake I came across a statement that explained, in a flash of light, as it were, something that has always puzzled me about Karl Rove. I mean the fact that Karl Rove never wears a hat.Read More
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Against a Long Habit
I don’t post a lot of political material here, but this I couldn’t let pass without a recommendation. It’s by Phil Rockstroh, whom I don’t know, but whose passion and perspective I recognize and admire. I discovered this on John Bloomberg-Rissman’s blog Zeitgeist Spam. John is one of the editors of Leafe Press, which published Ed Baker’s extraordinary Stone Girl E-Pic, which I aim to “review” soon.Read More
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Not Thinking
I’ve fallen into the habit of not thinking about post-avantists and other self-diddlers, but every once in a while I run across something that brings them to mind.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. 
