opening the day with anselm hollo

i fell asleep last night reading the poet's notebook [norton, 1995], a compendium of just that, poets and their jottings. consider it blogging but in paper form. i bought the book at the university bookstore because i liked some of the poets caught between two covers, such as yusef komanyakaa, charles simic, and a few more of the usual suspects readers of the new yorker find sometimes, oftentimes, in that magazine. i bought it too because i like reading notebooks, especially the journals of poets because poets are often, no matter their schooling, auto-didacts and seem always like they are trying to catch up so their noodlings are treasure chests of cool finds and their curiosity about the world and its subjects can be quite infectious.

the real find for me in the book, the one poet i've returned to again and again is anselm hollo. hollo writes using a mac and his lower-case stylings with a zen detachment married with great humor is both, at least to this reader, marvels of clarity and sanity. hollo is for me a poet who takes great pleasure at being in the world and has created a language of balance. i can't qualify that at all except to respond as a reader and fellow word-worker.

a few years ago i found in a used bookstore hollo's selected poems sojourner microcosms [blue wind press, 1977]. i think i might have written a bit about this book before. i pulled it off the shelf this morning and read about a dozen poems to gird me for the day. reading hollo is as eye-opening and bracing as a good, strong cup of black coffee. after reading this translation of catullus and hopi :

love-i --thou-- me-off-pissest

i was ready for whatever the day would throw at me.