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Goodbye, Dennis Brutus
South African poet Dennis Brutus, imprisoned and exiled for his anti-apartheid views, passed away the day after Christmas at his home in Cape Town. I met him once, at a poetry reading on the campus of Regis University in northwest Denver. A short, compact, self-contained man with gray Einsteinian hair, he read poems about systemic and individual brutality in a quiet voice that only made the horrors more vivid. He also read tender love poems and aphoristic, philosophical verses, poems of exile and celebration–all burning in the shadow of his vast sadness.Read More
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The Deeper Layers of Integration
The U. S. publisher (Archipelago Books) of Breyten Bretenbach’s All One Horse calls it a collection of “lyrical and satirical dream-fables,” which is an accurate a description. These pieces recall Michaux in their strangeness, and yet they don’t feel as hermetic; if you looked at your everyday life just slightly askew, you might glimpse some of these characters brooding away in their alternate universe of anxious but beautiful obsessions. Since Breytenbach is a poet, an adventurous and challenging poet, he has some things to say here about the art that deserve meditation.Read More
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A Brief Meditation on the “Masterpiece”
Around Christmas my daughter and I fell to arguing about the idea of a “masterpiece.” Having taught “masterpiece” courses, I felt obliged to defend the idea, although the longer we talked the more uncertain I felt about the notion. Then last night I was finishing up the South African writer Breyten Breytenbach’s Judas Eye and Self-Portrait/Deathwatch, an extraordinary selection of prison poetry and subsequent prose pieces.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. 
