Poems by Anselm Hollo, edited by John Bloomberg-Rissman and Yasmina Ghiasi
August 8, 2023 • 6 x 9 • 1,000 pages • 978-1-56689-685-6
Wry and witty poems from an avant-garde great, collected in one volume for the first time.
The Collected Poems of Anselm Hollo gathers over five decades of the multihyphenate poet’s work into one elegant volume. All of Hollo’s trademark humor, wisdom, and charm is on display here for students and fans of contemporary poetry. Warm, insightful, and delightfully observant, this comprehensive collection from the author of over forty books serves as a reminder that poetry isn’t just an aspiration or avocation, but a way of life.
About the Author
Poet and translator Anselm Hollo was born in Helsinki, Finland, in 1934. He lived in England for many years, working for the BBC European Service. In 1967, he moved to the United States and taught at various institutions, including SUNY Buffalo and the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado. Hollo, who was influenced by the Beat poets, was the author of more than forty books of poetry, including Notes on the Possibilities and Attractions of Existence: New and Selected Poems 1965–2000 (2001), which won the San Francisco Poetry Center Book Award; Corvus (1995); Finite Continued (1980); and Sojourner Microcosms: New and Selected Poems 1959–1977 (1977). He also published a book of essays, Caws and Causeries: Around Poetry and Poets (1999). His many translations include works by Paavo Haavikko and Pentti Saarikoski, for whose Trilogy (2003) Hollo received the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award from the Academy of American Poets.
Hollo’s many honors and awards included a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, grants from the Fund for Poetry, the Finnish State Award for Foreign Translators, and the Gertrude Stein Award in Innovative American Poetry. Hollo lived in Boulder with his wife, the artist Jane Dalrymple-Hollo, until his death in 2013.
Praise for Anselm Hollo
“In this posthumous trove of brief, zestful poems, Hollo . . . relates the ‘incredible onslaught of being,’ seemingly dashing off each of these frenetic, fragmented vignettes in a fit of wild gusto.” —Publishers Weekly
“Hollo’s poetry feels remarkably fresh and spontaneous. There is absolutely no artifice, no structural formality, no evident prosody.” —Heavy Feather Review
“The bedrock solidness of Anselm Hollo’s poems makes as ever a place of refuge and delight in these meager times. Thank god for his humor, else we’d all be dead.” —Robert Creeley
“Don’t miss anything at all by this strong poet.” —Library Journal
“Post-hipster wit and lyricist Anselm Hollo has always had the world’s lightest touch when it comes to balancing a poem on the invisible wire between sentimental openness and ironic judgment.” —San Francisco Chronicle