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On Carol Bass’s Ripple Effect
Order directly from the publisher or from Amazon. I am blown away. Flummoxed. Exalted! There is a new brilliantaceous star atop my publishing tree this Christmas, thanks to editor, artist, and poet Carol Bass.Read More
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Friday Notebook 08.05.2011
When it comes to a person’s opinions, we’re generally less interested (or should be) in the opinions than in the quality of the thinking that led to them. Poetry is the opposite; for readers, the end result is everything. Only scholars and other poets care how many drafts Yeats went through to arrive at “The Second Coming.” And it almost certainly didn’t matter to Yeats how great a struggle the poem involved, once the poem was done.Read More
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Poetry and Conscience
Here’s an interesting passage from Octavio Paz’s introduction to his Essays on Mexican Art: Between 1830 and 1930 artists formed a society within society or, more exactly, a confrontation with it. The rebellion of artistic communities against the taste of the Academy and the bourgeoisie manifested itself, brilliantly and consistently, in the critical works of a number of poets: Baudelaire, Apollinaire, Breton. I have mentioned only French poets because the phenomenon occurred most strikingly and most decisively in Paris, which was the center of modern art during those hundred years.Read More
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The Openness of Coral Bracho
Readers of this blog know I’m a fan of openness. But defining “openness” is impossible: the very nature of it defies definition. And it’s easy to confuse it with “anything goes.” I once fell to arguing with a friend who insisted that anything an artist says is art is art; some poets have made the same assertion for their own writing. Can I be a fan of openness without sharing that assertion? I guess it comes down to suggesting the kinds of openness I’m actually a fan of.Read More
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Mexico Via China
I’ve been trying to gather my scattered thoughts about the many terrific books I read in Mexico, but I’m finding that those two weeks of being a reader as opposed to being a writer have left me unfit for anything but more reading. So, instead of getting my thoughts down for posting, I wandered off into the new issue of The Atlanta Review, much of which is devoted to poetry—classical and contemporary—from China. It’s a rich and rewarding issue of what has become one of my favorite journals.Read More
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On The Incorrection
A couple of weeks ago I received my copy of Canadian poet George McWhirter’s new collection of poems, The Incorrection, and I’ve savored my way through it, first at one serial go, then dipping in and out like a sandpiper nibbling amidst sliding sea foam at the beach.* There is no way to summarize, coherently characterize, or anatomize this collection. First, it is large: 186 pages, or roughly three of what we’ve come to accept as average-in-length poetry books.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. 
