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Whitman in Conversation
I recently read Walt Whitman Speaks: His Final Thoughts on Life, Writing, Spirituality, and the Promise of America. As the editor, Brenda Wineapple, writes in her introduction that Whitman’s friend Horace Traubel visited Walt Whitman nearly every day in the poet’s two-story row house at 328 Mickle Street, Camden, New Jersey, beginning in March 1888, when Whitman was 69. As a bank clerk, Traubel was proficient in shorthand.Read More
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Mainstreams in Retrospect
A few weeks back Andrew Shields posted some thoughts on the notion of “mainstreams.” I commented on it and want to clarify and expand on that comment a bit, mainly because the use of “mainstream” as a pejorative in the poetry world is so annoying. Every poet wants to be an outlier, a rebel, radically individual or at least a member of a radically individual crowd. Hence the spectacle of tenured professors denouncing “mainstream poetry.” But does mainstream poetry exist? Well—yes and no. I think mainstreams exist only in retrospect.Read More
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The Greatness Debate
This is a reply to Adam Fieled’s excellent post, in which he responds to Amy King’s challenge to define “greatness.” Her post, I have to add, was occasioned by a New York Times essay by David Orr, “The Great(ness) Game”—a laughable piece of pseudo-intellectual drivel. Orr’s essay has succeeded, however, in spurring all sorts of commentary among poetry bloggers. It just happens that Fieled’s and King’s got my head buzzing like a late spring hive. So, by addressing Adam here, I’m also addressing Amy and David Orr and anybody else who’s been pondering the issue of poetic greatness.Read More
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Poetry Class War
“[I]f you look at the dozens and hundreds of anthologies of contemporary USA poetry published over the past two decades, you’ll find compilations of poems or poets gathered and linked to represent many categories of differentiation and distinction, with one exception. There are no anthologies based on class.” This powerful observation comes from today’s installment of Bill Knott’s blog.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. 
