Bob Holman, Proactive Poet

Bob Holman does not begin by writing poetry; he effectively begins by making music.  A documentary about him and poets around the world On the Road with Bob Holman puts the form on another level by proliferating the desire for poetic tourism in West Africa and Israel.  Sing This One Back to Me his most recent collection recognizes an added element, poems about paintings; a new, concise method of self expression and abstraction.  After three very beautiful poems, one of which is in Welsh, Holman delivers coins sized poems about Van Gogh, Kandinsky and Rothko.  “Perfectly Great” begins and ends:

                                                It would be great

                                                To eat an apple

                                                But there in the tree

                                                It is perfect

Although very concise, each of the poems about a modern painting is technically complete.  The Griot poems form the essence of his being proactive.  Accompanied by a Karo harp, an instrument made from an African gourd about the size of a pumpkin, they incorporate new writing with Griot song.  In my interview with him at St-Marks Bookstore after a performance with Salieu Susso, Holman described how his poetry affects the world, “At this time Kaira is being put to use to help to bring peace in Syria, among other places.  Of course, those were not the words taught to him by his father, but it is the griot’s job to make peace where war is now, to bring the current situation to our attention.  Make the poem real.”  Holman is Proactive because his intention is to attain esthetic beauty and retain the affect of words on the audience.

Holman and Susso are performing at 4 pm at Outlet Fine Art, Sunday February 2; 253 Wilson Avenue, Bushwick, New York.

 Bob Holman, Sing This One Back to Me, Minnesota:  Coffee House Press, 2013.

Bob Holman, On the Road with Bob Holman, DVD produced by Ram Devineni and Beatriz Seigner, New York:  Rattapallax, Bowery Arts + Science, 2012.

Salieu Susso, Griot, CD, Lyrichord, 1993.

 Contact me tedw.patch@aol.com