Our dear friend, poet Anselm Hollo passed away on this date, ten years ago today. We salute him and remember him fondly and are thrilled to announce the posthumous publication, later this year, of The Collected Poems of Anselm Hollo (edited by John Bloomberg-Rissman and Yasmina Ghiasi), over 1,700 poems, a thrilling 1,000 pages!
“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.”
Already-published (but, regretfully, only in his native Finnish) is Anselm’s biography – Kai Ekholm‘s Anselm Hollo – Beatnik Planeettamatkalla (Anselm Hollo – Beatnik on A Planetary Trip) – (Ville Hytönen reviews the book here)
Simultaneously, Rosebud, Ekholm’s publishers, have published a brief selection of Anselm’s poems (selected and translated into Finnish by Hannu Ylilehto), Avaruudessa- Runoja (A Room in Space)
Anselm’s publishers here in the United States continue to be the inestimable Coffee House Press. For information on other Anselm Hollo Coffee House titles – see here and here and here and here and here and here
I was a student in the Jack Kerouac School program at Naropa while Anselm was there and took classes with him. He was a delightful man! If his biography gets translated to English, I’d definitely be interested in reading it.
Thank you Simon for including this announcement of Anselm’s collected. I’m looking forward to ordering a copy through my nearest independent wood brick and mortar bookshop in Old New Orleans. I’ll never forget the first time I heard him laugh.
And another thing I won’t forget is getting the news on Anselm’s hospitalizations and surgery and the final news from Jane and from Tamsin. Sitting at my desk at work I got painful news of three friends passing–over the course of two or so years… I had to explain my shock and dismay to co-workers.
I too briefly knew Anselm Hollo in Boulder at Naropa institute in 1994. His laugh was infectious indeed. I enjoyed his droll wit and humor. A notable individualist whose spirit bore distinct identity and complemented the other faculty on site – Andrew Schelling, Anne Waldman, Lee Ann Brown, Steven Taylor, and Cecilia Vicuña to name a few.