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Poetry Month 2016: Ovid
Tristia, Book IV, 10 Who was this I you read, this trifler in tender passions? You want to know, posterity? Then attend:— Sulmo is my homeland, where ice-cold mountain torrents make lush our pastures, and Rome is ninety miles off. Here I was born, in the year both consuls perished at Antony’s hands; heir (for what that’s worth) to an ancient family, no brand-new knight promoted just yesterday for his wealth.Read More
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David Giannini: An Interview (Part Two)
[Today’s post concludes my interview with David Giannini. Jump back to Part One for a brief introduction and a substantial bio-/bibliography of the poet.] * * * TPB: Given your inclination toward the poetic sequence and the mixing of verse and prose, do you see yourself as part of the Modernist project? Not to apply labels or anything. Just curious about how you see yourself within “the tribe” that Eliot spoke of….Read More
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Open and Closed, Part 7
James Wright is one of my favorite poets, a man for whom poetry was “the grace of pain” (to quote my earlier quote from Breyten Breytenbach) and whose openness was not a poetic strategy but the fruit of long spiritual/artistic struggle. I chose the following poems from Wright’s Above the River: The Complete Poems, attempting to steer clear of his more widely anthologized work. One magnificent quality of Wright’s work is that one never doubts there is a human being behind it, as opposed (let’s say) to some Flarfist bot wandering cyberspace like a nihilistic spider.Read More
Joseph Hutchison, Colorado Poet Laureate 2014-2019, has published 17 books, including a translation of flash fictions by Mexican author Miguel Lupián, and co-edited two anthologies. He lives in the mountains southwest of Denver, Colorado, the city where he was born. He teaches at the University of Denver's University College, where he currently directs three programs: Professional Creative Writing, Arts & Culture Management, and Global Community Engagement. 
