Living Poetry (with Bob Holman)

The History of Literature

Jacke Wilson

History, Books, Arts

4.6 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 20 January 2020

⏱️ 75 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Fellow poet Naomi Shihab Nye says that Bob Holman's "life gusto and poetry voice keep the world turning." In this episode of The History of Literature, we tap into that voice, as Bob Holman joins us for a rollicking conversation about the poetic life he's led, from his birth in a small town in Kentucky to his decades living in New York City, where - in the words of Henry Louis Gates Jr. - he's "done more to bring poetry to cafes and bars than anyone since Ferlinghetti." Holman's latest works (Life Poem and The Unspoken, published recently by Bowery Books, were written fifty years apart. We'll ask Bob how he's changed as a poet and person in those years, and to give us his sense of where poetry has been, where it is now, and where it's headed. Poets and writers discussed or mentioned include ee cummings, William Blake, Gregory Corso, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Mayakovsky, the Russian futurists, Kenneth Koch, Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, Philip Roth, Donald Lev, Jackie Sheeler, Alan Ginsberg, Amiri Baraka, Jayne Cortez, Papa Susso, Pablo Neruda, Homer, Sappho, and Sekou Sundiata. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/shop. (We appreciate it!) Find out more at historyofliterature.com, jackewilson.com, or by following Jacke and Mike on Twitter at @thejackewilson and @literatureSC. Or send an email to [email protected]. Music Credits: “Bass Walker” and "Bluesy Vibes Sting" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ *** This show is a part of the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. We encourage you to visit the website and sign up for our newsletter for more information about our shows, launches, and events. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy. Since you're listening to The History of Literature, we'd like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows surrounding literature, history, and storytelling like Storybound, Micheaux Mission, and The History of Standup. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	The History of Literature Podcast is a member of the Podglamorate Network and LIT Hub Radio. You know this week our episode was on William Blake so you're going to be following William Blake.
0:20.0	So you're going to be following William Blake. I hope that's okay.
0:22.0	Oh my goodness. Oh boy, at least you're doing it in
0:24.8	alphabetical order. Oh that's fantastic. That's poet and poetic Ambassador Bob Holman joins us today for a rollicking conversation about poetry.
0:38.0	Where it's been, where it is now, and where it's going. Bob started life as the son of the only Jew in
0:46.3	Harlan, Kentucky, and he came through the 60s and the Vietnam era and has lived
0:51.8	all the way into whatever today's age will be called the
0:56.4	20s. Let's hope it ends up with a good title. Maybe it can if we make it so and if we listen to the poets the shock troops that work
1:08.0	on the ground bringing us news bringing us truth They are the green shoots that arise even when the mighty
1:16.6	oaks are blasted by disease and withering before our
1:25.0	national and international emergencies.
1:31.0	Bob Holman is a poet is.
1:26.0	The first responders to our national and international emergencies.
1:31.0	Bob Holman is a poet that Kentucky boy can. emergencies. to hear different voices, to be in rooms where poetry was being delivered to audiences,
1:47.0	searching for meaning, searching for innocence, searching for experience. He lived an entire life in poetry as a poet, as a reader, as an organizer,
1:58.6	as an advocate, as a filmmaker. Well, we'll let him tell you about his roles. You'll hear it all from the living legend,
2:06.1	Bob Holman, including the story of two books of poetry just published by Bowery Books, Life Poem, and The Unspoken, both by the same poet, written 50 years apart.
2:19.0	Well, I should say they were both by Bob Holman, one when he was 21 years old, and one when he was in his 70s.
2:25.8	Two books by the poet Bob Holman.
2:28.6	But is that the same poet?
2:30.6	Is that the same person?
2:31.9	We will ask Bob himself what he thinks.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Jacke Wilson, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Jacke Wilson and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.