Breathing Bolaño
Tod Thilleman & Rich Blevins
Two Books in One:
Breathing by TT & from Corrido of Bolaño by RB
ISBN 978-0-923389-81-9 $24.00 156 pages
Tod Thilleman moved to New York at the age of 18 and worked for a brief period with Pace Editions. Shortly thereafter he moved to Greenpoint, Brooklyn and began attending, on a regular basis, Matthew Courtney's poetry readings on Sunday nights at ABC NO RIO on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. It wasn't until Thilleman mentioned ABC NO RIO to Blevins, and Rich then quickly responding that he, too, read in that same neighborhood, Rivington Street, at exactly the same time-frame (1985-1987), that he began to reminisce in a slightly Bolañoesque fashion about the times spent with derelicts and poets. This was discovered mid-way thru their discussions on Bolaño. Thilleman is the author of numerous poetry collections and the novel Gowanus Canal, Hans Knudsen. From 1991-1999 he was an editor at Poetry New York: a journal of poetry & translation, for which he's still catching hell.
Richard Lowell Blevins is a poet writing in the tradition of Ezra Pound, H.D., and Robert Duncan, an editor of the Charles Olson-Robert Creeley correspondence, and an award-winning teacher. He was born in Wadsworth, Ohio, in 1950. His undergraduate career was halved by the May 4, 1970, Kent State shootings. He was declared a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War. At Kent State, he studied poetry and the imagination with Duncan and literature of the American West with Edward Dorn. But he has often said that Cleveland book dealer James Lowell was his most formative early influence. He holds degrees from Kent State University (General Studies, 1973), the University of Oregon (MA, English literature, 1976), and the University of Pittsburgh (Ph.D., English literature, 1985; dissertation on the western novels of Will Henry. He has taught literature and poetry writing at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg since 1978, also serving as Humanities Chair for nine years. He is a winner of a Chancellor’s Award, in 1999, the university’s highest recognition for teaching. He previously taught at the University of Akron and Kent State.