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Sucking Up (My Morning Vitriol)
“The Contradiction” (by David Spear) Why am I not surprised that Michael Robbins, in “reviewing” Lyn Hejinian’s My Life and My Life in the Nineties, begins with a truth (that Language poetry is boring), then accurately characterizes Hejinian’s approach: “writing as a paradoxically polished automatism.” Robbins is obviously a bright guy. Of course, calling Hejinian’s approach paradoxical doesn’t explain or justify it; in fact, it unmasks it as an exercise in cynicism: polish gives the lie to the writing’s ersatz automatism.Read More
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On W. S. Merwin and Paul Carroll
I want to celebrate the selection of W. S. Merwin for U.S. Poet Laureate. I encountered him first though his collection The Lice in a contemporary poetry class taught by James Doyle, and it’s still a touchstone book for me. Soon after that I stumbled on his great poem “Lemuel’s Blessing” in Paul Carroll‘s indispensable book The Poem in Its Skin (see below), and I was hooked. Merwin is one of maybe 20 poets I go back to when I get depressed over my own poetry or the poetry I’ve been reading.Read More
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A Diagnosis
I recently came across John Latta’s statement that at age 37 Lyn Hejinian wrote a book called My Life, which consisted of “thirty-seven sections, each thirty-seven sentences long.” And it hit me: the avant-garde (think OULIPO, think Goldsmith) is afflicted with and obsessive-compulsive disorder.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. 
