Anselm Hollo

Anselm Hollo Poems

Anselm Hollo Biography

Anselm Paul Alexis Hollo was a Finnish poet and translator. He lived in the United States from 1967 until his death in January of 2013. Paavo Anselm Aleksis Hollo was born in Helsinki, Finland. His father, Juho Aukusti Hollo[1] (1885–1967) — who liked to be known as "J. A." Hollo — was Professor of Philosophy at the University of Helsinki, an essayist, and a major translator of literature into Finnish. His mother was Iris Antonina Anna Walden, a music teacher and daughter of organic chemist Paul Walden. He lived for eight years in the United Kingdom producing three children: Hannes, Kaarina, and Tamsin, with his first wife, poet Josephine Clare. He was a permanent resident in the United States from the late 1960s until his death. At the time of his death and he resided in Boulder, Colorado with his second wife, artist Jane Dalrymple-Hollo. Hollo published more than forty titles of poetry in the UK and in the US, in a style strongly influenced by the American beat poets. In 1965, Hollo performed at the "underground" International Poetry Incarnation, London. In 2001, poets and critics associated with the SUNY Buffalo POETICS list elected Hollo to the honorary position of "anti-laureate", in protest at the appointment of Billy Collins to the position of Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. Hollo translated poetry and belles-lettres from Finnish, German, Swedish and French into English. He was one of the early translators of Allen Ginsberg into German and Finnish. Hollo taught creative writing in eighteen different institutions of higher learning, including SUNY Buffalo, the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and the University of Colorado at Boulder. Since 1985, he has taught in the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University, where he held holds the rank of Full Professor. Hollo became ill, and during the summer of 2012, had brain surgery. Several of his poems have been set into music by pianist and composer Frank Carlberg. Poets Ted Berrigan and Alice Notley named their son Anselm Berrigan after Hollo. Hollo died from post operative pneumonia on January 29, 2013 at the age of 78. Awards 2004 Harold Morton Landon Translation Award. 2001 best book of poems Award by the San Francisco Poetry Center, for Notes on the Possibilities and Attractions of Existence: New and Selected Poems 1965–2000. 1996 Government of Finland's Distinguished Foreign Translator's Award 1996 Gertrude Stein Award in Innovative American Poetry 1995-1996 1979 NEA and Poets Foundation fellowships)

The Best Poem Of Anselm Hollo

Born Today

for Jane

is to be one to the one
closest to you
who shares the air
& other elements
right there next to you

two bodies wrapped in darkness
among millions of other bodies
wrapped in darkness & smoke
war bloodshed & chaos
voices rising out of the dirt

one to the one without whom one
wouldn't be one
who saves one when lost
in regions of the past
raging at bygone constellations
pursued by a swarm of angst gnats
who saves by her sight & sound & touch
to notice
that gravity's strong on this planet
notice
there's a half-ton of apples in that tree
notice cricket jumping on cedar branch
feline humor magpie elegance

in sum
this world
born not so long ago
with maybe not that far to go
still roaming
the contradictory corridors
of a universe or two
wind turns pages then shuts book
he looks up she looks up from piano keys

hold that frame

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