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Adios, Jim Harrison
I just this morning finished Jim Harrison’s latest collection of poems, Dead Man’s Float—as luminous and robust as all of Jim Harrison’s writing, so I’m taking his loss, which I found out about a few hours later, quite personally. I fell in love with Harrison’s work through Letters to Yesenin, the back cover of which, as I recall, bore a photo of the poet sitting half in, half out of a beat up old pickup truck above an author’s note describing him as a “white trash fop.” I’m a sucker for self-inflicted humor, but after reading the book I could…Read More
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The Music of Borges
I’ve had great amateur fun in the past playing with translation, which for me is an adventure as much in sound as in meaning. While reading the new Penguin bilingual edition of Jorge Luis Borges’s sonnets, a book that highlights a side of Borges American readers may be unfamiliar with, I was struck by how strong the translations are overall. (This is a tribute to the collection’s editor, Stephen Kessler.) So strong are these versions, in fact, that the weaker ones—a fraction of the 137 poems gathered here—really stand out. One version in particular, Alan S. Trueblood’s translation of “Habla…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. 
