|
Notes
on the Possibilities and Attractions of Existence: Selected
Poems 1965 - 2000
Reviews
Poetry Center Book Award Winner
Rain Taxi Review of Books:
"[Hollo's poetic] conversations, real and imagined, become an idiosyncratic yet comprehensive tour of the course of modern poetry, an attempt to reinvigorate a university-bound art form by revisiting some of the wellsprings of that art."
Publishers Weekly:
"The plethora of poems here, arranged chronologically and containing a quietly expanding sense of uncertainty for the fate of the species, have a range that belie Hollo's relative lack of fame."
Magill Book Reviews:
"Incredibly poignant . . . unexpectedly witty."
Joanne Kyger, Poetry Center Book Award judge's citation:
"Anselm Hollo consistently writes with bright unerring clarity, wit, and grace of intelligence. His voice so easily and deftly delineated on the page is worldly and cosmopolitan, yet very local to place and its moments. . . . Hollo has settled through the years into the 'New American Poetry' and made it a place to 'be' in. His writing lightly avoids the glacial aspirations of profundity yet carries the traditions of wisdom and awareness. One feels at home with this poetry and its humane support of the reader. . . . And the language—hip and jazzy, humorous, erudite and seemingly casual, overlays the serious rumblings of a non-complacent mind, always very 'there,' wary and alert. Resonating from the onset of the moment, his poems are sharp, concise, politically prescient, and a bit world weary—as should be expected—with his awareness of and translations from an international and intercultural world of writing. Although he has made the United States his home since [the 1960s], he still retains the valuable ability to see 'America' from the outside. Yet he knows that 'beauty knows no ideologically correct routines.' Routines then become celebrations of domestic delights and adventures, common and precious to us all. This book stays open."
Also available by this author:
|
