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Poetical Political Fail
The cri du coeur below were written in the first year of the Trump administration, a dystopian period we seem in danger of revisiting. I had in mind to write thirteen poems in homage to Wallace Stevens and his “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” but found that each of these made me want to take a shower with soap made of stinging lye—the only solution I could imagine to the daily onslaught of stupidities from the Liar-in-Chief. So this project joined numerous others I began but never finished.Read More
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An Antidote to Mediocrity and Sameness
I’m passing along this message from The Bloomsbury Review, one of the very few publications that seeks out and reviews quality books that are undeservedly overlooked by other media. (You can read their full mission statement here.) Blooms, as long-time supporters and contributing writers like me refer to it, has been offering up intelligent, often extensive reviews of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry books from small, regional, nonprofit, independent, and university presses since 1980.Read More
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Dunne on Corman
Here’s an illuminating review by Gregory Dunne of Cid Corman’s The Next One Thousand Years, first published in The Pacific Rim Review of Books. Having written about the book myself for The Bloomsbury Review, I was struck by the fact that there is not a single overlap between my illustrative sampling of Corman’s work and Mr. Dunne’s. Yes, Cid Corman’s excellence is just that broad and various.Read More
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By the Light of a Page (Updated)
This review appeared in the January/February 2009 Issue of The Bloomsbury Review. ©2009 by Joseph Hutchison. NOTE: A correction and some additional information has been appended to this post as of 01/21/09. The Next One Thousand Years: The Selected Poems of Cid Corman By Cid Corman Edited by Ce Rosenow and Bob Arnold 207 pages, paper ISBN-13: 978-1-929048-08-3 ISBN-10: 1-929048-08-4 Longhouse, Publishers & Booksellers 1604 River Road Guilford, VT 05301 All strong poets ground their work in their own “significant tradition”: an idiosyncratic, even contrarian view of what really matters in the history of their art.Read More
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The Further Adventures of Bill Knott
NOTE: This review appeared in the July/August 2008 Issue of The Bloomsbury Review. ©2008 by Joseph Hutchison. Stigmata Errata EtceteraPoems by Bill Knott Collages by Star Black Introduction by Mark Doty 68 pages, paper ISBN: 0-9754990-4-1 Saturnalia Books 13 E. Highland Avenue, 2nd Floor Philadelphia, PA 19118 Some poets adopt the artistic assumptions of their historical moment and achieve significance by discovering new subtleties in the existing modes or by extending the range of content those modes can accommodate.Read More
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Traveling from Delight to Wisdom with Art Goodtimes
NOTE: This review appeared in the March/April 2008 Issue of The Bloomsbury Review. ©2008 by Joseph Hutchison. As If the World Really Mattered Poems by Art Goodtimes 128 pages, paper ISBN-13: 978-1-888809-49-7 ISBN-10: 1-888809-49-3 La Alameda Press 9636 Guadalupe Trail NW Albuquerque, NM 87114 Poetry is not a democratic art. It is not a product of the demos, that is, but the fruit of solitary labor—though honed, in some cases, by public performance. It is idiosyncratic, suffering in committee and dissenting—sometimes loudly, sometimes sotto voce—from every parade.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. 
