Anselm Hollo was born and raised in Helsinki, Finland. He worked as a poet, translator, editor and journalist in Sweden, Germany, and Austria before coming to the US in 1966.
He took up teaching positions at SUNY Buffalo and the Writers' Workshop in Iowa City where he first met Ted Berrigan with whom he remained very close friends. The Beat movement and New York School was certainly a major influence on Hollo’s writing: even before coming to the US he had translated Ginsberg into Finnish. Another important influence was however William Carlos Williams – another poet he had translated previously. As Paul Hoover notes in the anthology: “Hollo’s work privileges the details of everyday life. He is adept at capturing isolated moments of perception.” A tendency he shares with both Williams, as well as his fellow poets such as Philip Whalen and Berrigan. “Often whimsical and gently satirical in tone, Hollo’s poems are open-ended, valuing an ongoing human attentiveness rather than rejecting closure on the basis of theory.” (Hoover)
Hollo taught creative writing at a wide range of different institutions across the US, including the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University, where he held the rank of Full Professor since 1985. Hollo’s many honours and awards included a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, grants from the Fund for Poetry, the Government of Finland’s Distinguished Foreign Translator’s Award, and the Gertrude Stein Award in Innovative American Poetry. Hollo lived with his wife, the artist Jane Dalrymple-Hollo, in Boulder until his death in 2013.
Links:
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/anselm-hollo
http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/anselm-hollo
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/anselm-hollo-poet-translator-and-teacher-8473828.html
My below poem is a response to Hollo’s poem entitled “The Dream of Instant Total Representation”. Taking a look at the idea of possible political change and new beginnings, it works with found text I gathered from Twitter under #Greece.
~ - ~
The Dream of Instant Total Revolution
Isn’t there an extra second added today
3 hours before the payment deadline
the rundown confederate crash help
makes history
might crowd funding be the answer?
you can find the Paypal link below
the total debt split across all citizens
is nearly thirty thousand per head
storm clouds literally over the capital
capital or capital
early July heatwave
change – change part 28
the talks continue
litter bins and boarded windows in every town
bailout for bailout for bailout for out
what is happening here is what they have done to
many poorer nations through structural
adjustment on behalf of corporate capital
capital or capital
the talks continue
not often - but in these days I regret
that I did not learn to speak the ancient language
by the time the country closes its banks
few hedge funds had much direct hold
we stand by the people of Greece
default in 2 hours
we stand by the people of Greece
as Fitch downgrades
further into junk status
from ccc to cc plus
we stand
crowds gathering
we stand
O X I
No comments:
Post a Comment