The Tortoise of History

by Anselm Hollo

Overview

From "Art History":

Someone comes along gives that tedious old thing a new twist or breaks its neck

the old questions don't change:

what do you want me to say?
what do you want me to do?

Anselm Hollo (1934–2013) authored more than forty books and was an award-winning translator. Born in Helsinki, Finland, he was fluent in German, Swedish, Finnish, and English by age ten. Hollo eventually settled in the United States in 1966, where he taught at Naropa Universityin Boulder, Colorado.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781566894449
Publisher:	Coffee House Press
Publication date:	08/02/2016
Pages:	112
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Anselm Hollo (1934-2013) authored more than forty books and was an award-winning translator. Born in Helsinki, Finland, he was fluent in German, Swedish, Finnish and English by age ten. After a decade in England writing and broadcasting for the BBC European Services, Hollo eventually settled in the United States in 1966, where he taught at Naropa Universityin Boulder, Colorado. His collection of poems, Notes on the Possibilities and Attractions of Existence, received the San Francisco Poetry Center Award.

Table of Contents

Foreword xi

Part 1 The Tortoise of History

Wildly Tangled 3

Quake 4

Don't Tell Me 5

Why Not 6

She Said 7

Art History 8

Home 9

Some Ways 10

City Of 11

"Why Read So Much?" 12

Time 13

Dasein 14

Somewhere 16

Who Said He Could Do This 17

Boulder, Colorado 18

"There Is Room in the Room That I Room In" 19

Who Would Have Thought-Santa Ganesh! 20

100-Year-Old Poet 21

Nothing 22

Rides with Bob Creeley 23

Bugs Killed Our Tree 25

The Less Known 26

Rainy Night 27

New Year's Poem 28

Crocus 29

More So Than Before 30

Broken Flowers 31

African Gray Parrot with a Brain the Size of a Walnut Understands a Numerical Concept Akin to Zero 32

Listen to the Long Hiss of Time 33

The Way They Pop Up Now 34

Mirlitonnade 35

A Valentine 36

"Growing Old Together" 37

The Bugs Sang Grand 38

You Were Talking (1967) 39

The Pika 40

75 41

Formal Prosody 42

The Stars 43

As 44

A Place Is a While 45

After They've Gone 46

Still 47

Reading Joanne Kyger 48

Hunchback Mountain 49

Late Night, Old Surprises 50

Noir 51

Running 52

Sitting in Peaceful Lamplight 53

At Civitella Ranieri 54

The Bard of the Pyrenees 55

See What You Got, Tomorrow (2002) 58

Looking at the Old Hand 60

Two Strange Little Vessels 61

James Butler A.K.A. Wild Bill Hickok's Final Stream of Consciousness 63

Blue Moon 64

Another One Gone Too Soon 65

2010 A Spring of Departures 66

The Tortoise of History 67

Part 2 Hipponax, His Poems

I Careless Love 77

II What a Mob 83

III Screech Screech Here Come the Ghosts (Or, "People Who Died") 86

IV Still Waiting for My Winter Coat 88

Editorial Reviews

07/18/2016
In this posthumous trove of brief, zestful poems, Hollo (1934–2013), a prolific poet and multilingual translator, relates the “incredible ONSLAUGHT of being,” seemingly dashing off each of these frenetic, fragmented vignettes in a fit of wild gusto. He’s capable of filtering even the most mundane phenomena through his playful mind: one poem features a woman in an antique store chiding her dog, and another consists of a single line, identical to its title: “b u g s k i l l e d o u r t r e e.” Yet within Hollo’s exuberance is an awareness of mortality: “Dear hearts it is late in the game// and how will the untold be told?” The last section of the collection consists of what Hollo describes as “an intuitive display” of the work of the ancient Greek poet Hipponax, crude, delightful renderings of the disjointed originals. He interprets one snippet as “her nose a bell/ with snot for a clapper,” and an ageless nugget of wisdom is rendered as “unfunny he who drinks his lunch.” Hollo’s quirky and disarming joy remained intact until the end: “I print your messages/ dear friends/ and feel the love and/ accept it with/ all my heart and brain which/ still feel like they’re working.” (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

“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.” —Publisher's Weekly

“Hollo’s poetry feels remarkably fresh and spontaneous. There is absolutely no artifice, no structural formality, no evident prosody.” —Heavy Feather Review

From the Publisher

10/15/2016
This posthumous collection from Helsinki-born, American-based Hollo, for many years an instructor at Colorado's culture-bending Naropa University, opens by expressing impatience with "this lame old plutocracy" and those "occupied by their precious little lives." The politics you'd expect, but the tone throughout is better expressed by the poem's title: "Wildly Tangled." Hollo moves wildly, even giddily, from earthquake, crocuses, old friends, and Dasein ("the incredible ONSLAUGHT of being!") to the persevering "tortoise of history" and an energized, slightly bent remaking of Greek mythology. In "Art History," he confirms, "The old questions/ don't change," but as he shows, they do get addressed differently. VERDICT Sparkly, witty, insouciant, with little drops of wisdom and a few throwaways; fun for all.

Library Journal