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The Invention of Hell
Hell was the invention of money-makers; its purpose was to divert the attention of the poor from their present afflictions. Firstly with the repeated threat that they might be very much worse off. And secondly with the promise, for the obedient and loyal that, in another life, in the Kingdom of God, they would all enjoy what wealth can buy in this world and more. Without the evocation of Hell, the Church’s demonstrative wealth and ruthless power would have been far more openly questioned because they were in evident contrast to the teaching of the Gospels.Read More
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Daggett on Rich
Lyle Daggett has a moving remembrance if Adrienne Rich here.Read More
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Legitimization Factories
Lyle Daggett has a recent post at A Burning Patience with a tantalizing excerpt from an interview with Lorna Dee Cervantes. She discusses English departments, but what she says applies to cultural support institutions like the Pew Center or the Poetry Foundation as well. Of English departments, she says, “We are working in this legitimization factory.” Think about that…. And how does legitimization come about? What are the forces that create and distributes legitimization from the “factory”? Lorna Dee puts it this way: “I’m saying look at the conditions of power.Read More
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A Life-Altering Friendship: Dale Jacobson on Thomas McGrath
Dale Jacobson I can’t thank Lyle Daggett enough for posting on his blog this link to a long, powerful memoir by poet Dale Jacobson about his friend and mentor, Thomas McGrath. It’s exciting to have this essay for several reasons. One, McGrath deserves to be more of a presence on our cultural radar, if only because his work has been severely undervalued and almost certainly suppressed—not by some conspiracy of nefarious political opponents, but (worse) by a pernicious aesthetic correctness, according to which poetry that embodies a profound systemic political critique is somehow not “first order” poetry.Read More
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Cattywampus
Just want to encourage you all to swing by the new Pemmican, where you’ll find some fine new poems by Lyle Daggett (here and here). In one of my favorites, “road song and annunciation,” you’ll get to walk with Tom McGrath on Whitman’s open road and see wonderful sights like these: … a gap in the fence where a spring colt canters off cattywampus the tack and yammer of a one-eyed crow from a lone pine hallooing down the small rain… Any poem with “cattywampus” in it is bound to be good.Read More
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Who Speaks to You?
I’m rereading Thomas McGrath’s magnificent Letter to an Imaginary Friend, in which he several times mentions Don Gordon. Don Gordon? A poet, it turns out, one of the many I’d never heard of until some other reader (usually another poet—in this case McGrath) brings them to my attention. Now I’ve discovered Don Gordon’s Collected Poems and am waiting for a check or two to clear so I can buy it.Read More
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In Praise of Serendipity (UPDATED)
A couple of weeks ago I was visiting family in Eugene, Oregon, a small city with several excellent used book stores. In my favorite store, Tsunami Books, I picked up Linda Hamalian‘s A Life of Kenneth Rexroth for a mere six bucks. The picture she paints of Rexroth isn’t pretty—a tale of paranoia, sexist behavior, personal violence, egotism; serial infidelity on the one hand and pie-eyed romanticism on the other—but through it all Rexroth’s powerful intellect and creative energy radiate.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. 
