PennSound Creates New, Extensive Author Page for Anselm Hollo
A brand-new PennSound page has gone up for Anselm Hollo (1934–2013), and includes poems, translations, prose, and video and audio recordings galore. Also here is an "about the author" section, which points to Tom Raworth's obituary for the poet, as well as an interview at the Poetry Society of America. An excerpt from that gives a good idea of where he was coming from:
Do you believe you could readily distinguish a poem by an American poet from a poem by other poets writing in English?
That would depend on the poet. Quite a few [US]American poets seem to still think of themselves as disciples of what they perceive to be the "English" tradition and are content, even proud to create plausible simulacra of their idols.
What do you see as the consequences of "political correctness" for American poetry?
I should hope it has room for 'correctness' as well as 'incorrectness,' Devil's advocacy, satire, irreverence, and attacks on smugness and hypocrisy, those pervasive [US]American vices.
What are your predictions for American poetry in the next century?
In the Utopian Millennial Wish Department, I foresee no great changes in [US]American general dominant cultural views of and attitudes toward poetry or any of the inventive arts. I wish, however, that toilers in the field of poetics oppositional to those dominant attitudes would bear in mind that they, too, often succumb to corporate culture's desire to have everything (not just poetry) clearly labeled and classified.
Have fun with so much more by and about Anselm Hollo at PennSound.