Two Poems for Anselm Hollo

Notes

Anselm Hollo (1934-2013) was/is author of nearly forty books and chapbooks of poems, translator from five different languages of works ranging from poems by the great Finnish poet Pentti Saarikoski to books by the Turkish-German detective novelist Jakob Arjouni to Brecht, Genet, Blaise Cendrars, and many more. Amazingly great poet. Fabulous voice. Beloved teacher for decades at many places, mainly the Jack Kerouac school at Naropa University the past thirty years or so. Lived and worked through a vein of casual and nonetheless open erudition that's painfully rare, making it that much harder to lose. Didn't have a condescending or pretentious bone in his body, while being something like the most knowledgable, amused human being one could know. Did not take the poetry/art worlds and all their labels and bullshit at all seriously. His own books of poetry include Corvus, Guests of Space, and the larger collection Notes on the Possibilities and Attractions of Existence: Selected Poems 1965-2000.