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(UPDATED) Second verse . . .
. . . same as the first.* Nothing against Don Share, of course. But “[a]fter an extensive national search” … really? Still, what could we expect from an organization whose “incoming president” could—with a straight face, I’m sure—remark, “Don Share represents significant change as well as continuity.” Just as Poetry Magazine represents good poetry as well as bad, I suppose. Still, maybe along about January I’ll re-up to see if Mr. Share’s editing “bears the handprint of necessity” (to steal the luminous phrase that Laurence Lieberman, I believe, once used in a review to describe W. S.Read More
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Robert Mezey’s “My Mother”
In my reply to a kind comment by Raksha on part one of my Breadcrumbs “anthology,” I promised to post this poem by Robert Mezey. It’s from his Collected Poems 1952-1999. MY MOTHER My mother writes from Trenton,a comedian to the bonebut underneath seriousand all heart.Read More
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Breadcrumbs: A Personal Anthology of 2009 (Part One)
Inspired by Bob Arnold’s playground, I’m going to leave some breadcrumbs here that others might want to follow. My aim is to whittle down two large stacks of reading done in the past year, which had built up while I slowly came to the realization that I will never have the time or strength to write in any detail about them all. These morsels I offer in lieu of the more in-depth reactions all of these books deserve.Read More
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Sad News…
Reginald Shepherd—poet, essayist, anthologist, fellow blogger (visit here and here), and a good friend to The Perpetual Bird—passed away yesterday evening (according to this post by Emily Warn on Harriet) after a long and painful contest with cancer. I never had the good fortune of meeting Reginald, though we corresponded off and on by email. He wrote beautiful poems and passionate, intelligent essays, many of which first saw light on his own blog. We will always have his books, but I will miss the ongoing dialogue he conducted with poets (living and dead).Read More
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Poetry and the Poet’s Character
Reginald Shepherd, in a typically thoughtful and eloquent post, successfully critiques the notion that poets associated with Donald M. Allen’s seminal anthology, The New American Poets, wrote with political and/or social change as a goal. Unfortunately, as he reaches his conclusion, he uses his valuable analysis to make a puzzling claim: “If we were to judge works of art by their creators’ political positions, much would be ruled out of bounds.” On the surface this sounds admirably dispassionate; but the implications of his statement are troubling.Read More
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Reginald Shepherd and the Surrealist Project
Over the past two weeks Reginald Shepherd has put up a provocative four-part series of posts on the subject of “Avant-Garde and Modern.” I won’t summarize his argument, since each part is available here—part one, part two, part three, part four— and the whole series deserves a careful reading. However, there is a key element of Reginald’s premise that I need to dispute. He comes by honestly, because the touchstone for his posts is the work of a German art theorist named Peter Bürger.Read More
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A Conversation in Progress II
This continues my conversation with Reginald Shepherd regarding his recent post on Harriet. Of course, there they are mixed in with all sorts of commentary from other readers, so I’m culling the latest installments of our conversation for presentation here. ++++ Dear Joseph, Thanks for your thoughtful and eloquent comment. I think that we do in fact disagree, but I will try to clarify my position.Read More
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A Conversation in Progress
Reginald Shepherd has put a thought-provoking post on his Harriet blog, which you should read here before going on. I thought I should aggregate the exchanges that followed between Reginald and me, if only because it’s fund (for some people) to experience writers thinking “out loud.” +++ Here’s my initial reply: Reginald writes: “Art emerges from and is conditioned by its social context, but it isn’t determined by it.Read More
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Reginald Shepherd Interview
Kudos to Reginald Shepherd for his candidness in this noteworthy online interview.Read More
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A Valuable “Post-” Post
Over at his blog on Harriet, Reginald Shepherd offers a characteristically insightful post about “post-” poets (post-modern, post-avant, etc.). Here’s an excerpt: Post-avant writers tend to eschew the standard and standardized autobiographical or pseudo-autobiographical anecdote which predominates in what’s called (usually pejoratively) “mainstream” poetry. Indeed, they frequently problematize and question the notions of self and of personal experience. But they don’t just discard the self as an ideological illusion. As well, they tend to avoid or at least seriously complicate narrative of any variety. They incorporate fracture and disjunction without enthroning it as a ruling principle.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. 
