Ishion Hutchinson was born in Port Antonio, Jamaica. He is the author of two poetry collections, Far District and House of Lords and Commons. He is the recipient of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a 2013 Whiting Award in Poetry, the PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award, and the Larry Levis Prize from the Academy of American Poets, among others. His works have appeared in several anthologies and journals including Poetry, The Nation, Poetry Review, Gulf Coast, Ploughshares, Narrative, Granta, The Huffington Post, and New Letters. Hutchinson teaches in the graduate writing program at Cornell University and is a contributing editor to the literary journals The Common and Tongue: A Journal of Writing & Art.
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Far DistrictPoemsFrom"Autobiography of Snow"
I know snow as soap opera, the comedy
of white heap shovelled into strophe
and anti-strophe for long blocks – snow
as envy, a shaken blanket making a lasting
echo over clean avenues.
Far District:Poems -
Far DistrictPoemsFrom"Vintage Rain"
I considered the cat and myself in the echo
of the conquistador’s lightning, visor lowered
somewhere in the gulf stream.
Far District:Poems -
Far DistrictPoemsFrom"Nana"
All me life there were mongrels and cane fields,
blasted idiot people who only abuse me body.
All me live avoided mirrors, me yam nose,
me egg eyes, me monstrosity, me blackness.
Far District:Poems
"In this vivid and affecting first book, Ishion Hutchinson gives us a world in which 'everything was about spirit' . . . Each description, each character becomes indelible." —Jacqueline Osherow, author, The Hoopoe's Crown [on Far District]
“Far District is a marvelous book of generous, giving poems. Not only does this collection travel through an abiding language and far-reaching imagery, but it also transports the reader to a complex psychological terrain through a basic honesty and truthfulness. The leap-frogging of borders is executed with an ease that never fails to engage the reader’s mind and body. There’s a playfulness here that’s contagious and, at times, even outrageous . . . Hutchinson is a young poet who seems to journey wherever his poems take him, and the reader is blessed to accompany him.” —Yusef Komunyakaa, author, Apologize for the Eyes in My Head
Selected Works
- Print Books
- Bookshop
“Far District is a reconstruction of history—the poet’s own orphaned past (never sentimentalized) and the indigenous history of Jamaica. At once biography and autobiography, generous with its thinking and observations, the telling enchants us. The poems are urgent, authentic, deeply felt, and beautifully shaped. It is rare to find such achievement in a first collection, where an author writes from a place of humility in the face of literary tradition. His work possesses high artistic merit; his love of world literature suffuses his lines and spurs his ambition. This collection is a true work of alchemy.”