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Poetry Makes Something Happen
Günter Grass at Home I suppose it’s appropriate that Poetry Month should witness the international furor created by the great German poet and novelist Günter Grass with his poem “What Must Be Said.” (So much for Auden and his assertion that “poetry makes nothing happen.”) There are now several translations of the poem available, each of which has something to recommend it; but this is my favorite as a whole, despite an awkward patch or two: WHAT MUST BE SAIDGünter Grass / Tr.Read More
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Breadcrumbs: A Personal Anthology of 2009 (Part Two)
This post continues the “anthology” described in the previous post. I recommend you start there! ~~~ From MY HAIR TURNING GRAY AMONG STRANGERSby Leroy V. Quintana GRANDMOTHER’S FATHER Grandmother’s father was killed by some tejanosone winter, hit in the back of the head with a rifle buttas he was placing his foot into some tracks in the snowto prove they were to big to be his.They had accused him of stealing traps from their lines.Read More
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Entering the Mystery
Why is it that a poem such as this, composed in a language I don’t know and translated into mine — losing what and gaining what, I can’t pretend to say — … why is it that this speaks so much more powerfully than the hundreds of American poems I’ve read this summer? (Their considerable brilliance has struck me as being like sunlight dazzling off the surface of a swimming pool: surface flashes, sparkling words on vacation.) It can’t be this poem’s artistry, which I can experience only through the translator’s screen; it can’t be some personal resonance in the…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. 
