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Adventures in Reading 2019
2019 was a challenging year—deaths, health scares, creative dysfunction—but as ever, reading sustained me. I finally read Juan Rulfo‘s classic Pedro Páramo—one of those books that makes me wonder why I waited so long. It’s a visceral, phantasmagorical novel with all the psychic force of Greek tragedy. I knew that it is widely considered the first fully-realized instance of magical realism, and I can see how unlikely it would be for us to have One Hundred Years of Solitude without Rulfo’s influence.Read More
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Don’t Miss Bob Cooperman and Tom Montag @ BookBar This Saturday
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Thank You, Tom
I have not managed to write directly about the arrival of Cheeto Head in the White House. But Tom Montag has—indirectly. Indirectly direct! With a hope I trust will fulfill itself one day…. JANUARY 20, 2017 Out of darkness, fog, hiding the barren trees, hanging like unhappiness….Read More
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Poetry 2014 at BookBar
I started organizing First Saturday Poetry Readings at BookBar, a thriving indie bookstore in Northwest Denver, back in April 2014, and as the year nears its end I thought it would be useful to list everyone who has participated so far. Saturday, April 5: Andrea Hollander, reading from Landscape with Female Figure: New & Selected Poems, 1982–2012; Robert Cooperman, reading from Just Drive; and me myself, reading from the paperback reissue of Bed of Coals. Saturday, May 2: David Mason, then Poet Laureate of Colorado, and Chris Ransick, erstwhile Poet Laureate of Denver, in a Laureate Smackdown.Read More
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On Tom Montag’s In This Place
In This Place I highly recommend this insightful review by Peter Stephens of Tom Montag‘s In This Place: Selected Poems 1982-2013 over at the wonderful multi-author blog Slow Reads. I’ve posted many times about Tom and his work, but never as cogently as Peter has in this review. Enjoy! Also, a heads up: Tom will be reading at BookBar in Denver on Saturday, October 4th.Read More
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A Blogger’s Notebook 15
Poem Beginning with Two Lines from Montag “Poetrybears repeating”because it bears onand bears upwhat we can’t bearto losebut will—unless I’ve entirelylost my bearings.Read More
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Surprised by That Woman
A proof copy of That Woman The other day the mail brought me a surprise: a slim chapbook of poems by the venerable Tom Montag entitled That Woman. The dedication says it all: To the memory of That Woman Lorine Niedecker 1903-1970 Each of these 13 poems is small in the same way that Niedecker’s poems are small: few words opening onto vistas of feeling and insight. They are aphoristic and imagistic by turns, and all inspired by Niedecker’s presence—written in response to walking with her, engaging her in conversation.Read More
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Being Someone Else
From the Peppercanister chapbook Love, Joy, Peace by one of Ireland’s most amazing poets, Thomas Kinsella: Grace as routine.The lone artificer loosening the charged factsfrom an imagination arguing with itselfuntil the ache is eased—by the will, in tedium;and the ache-object eased in its correctnessout of the containing inexactness. This is ever been the greatest weakness of my practice: no routine. I write when moved to write, avoid prompts and exercises, generally fail to respond to occasions that cry out for such responses (not always, though, as with the BP spill in the Gulf).Read More
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Tom Montag: A Re-Alert
I occasionally mention Tom Montag. Well, here he is again, out-Williams-ing Williams, out-Cormaning Corman, leaving Creeley in the dust.Read More
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Whale Songs
Below is a reply (albeit written years ago) to this lovely poem by the indefatigable Tom Montag: Blues On the swaying blackbranches of the sea, whale songsbloom: blue, then bluer….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. 
