Some Brief Reflections on The Collected Poems of Anselm Hollo

 

Well, I’ve read all of these poems now (the last one is on page 1048), over the seven months since I first had the book.

So. I don’t think anyone is going to call Anselm Hollo (1934-2013) the greatest American poet of the 20th century. Surely he’s the most important Finnish American poet, whatever the competition might be. He’s not going to be called the most extreme poet, the most outrageous, the most experimental, the most challenging, the darkest, the most troubling or desperate, the most dense or high-flying, the most obscure, the most filled with pressure that can be barely articulated, the most culturally incisive, the one whose despair is unmatched. He’s not the most original, as his sense of line remains closely connected to Ted Berrigan, not the most musical although his lines are often amazingly musical. He’s probably not the most ironic, although he’s close here because he’s certainly ironic. He’s probably not the most learned although he sure knew plenty. He doesn’t stand on the extreme outside edge of anywhere, calling us into the wilderness.

What he might just be, if such a thing can even be considered, is the most well-adjusted American poet of the 20th century. Maybe he’s the most ready to live with the challenges of each day and with others in a way that remains open, curious, involved, interested, eager for dialogue. Does anybody care anymore, at this stage of our all-knowing, all-orchestrated human world, about a poet who’s excited and fascinated at being in the world without being motivated by huge complaints against it, whatever huge complaints are inevitable for him and anybody else? Is it possible to care about poetry that seems motivated by enjoying and engaging the possibilities of living, to the point of keeping enthusiasm for the whole fact of it, although never losing sight of things that have gone wrong?

The poems never feel ambitious except to the extent that they consistently deflect ambition. They seem aware that a reputation for greatness turns too often into a game of who can outmaneuver the other poor suckers who happen to be more involved in other parts of life. It adds up to a kind of profound anti-ambition.

And there he might have an edge. A poet who is more anti-ambitious in his ambitions than most other poets who have thrown more than a thousand pages of poetry at the many walls and down the many dead-ends of contemporary life. A poet who finds more that’s worthwhile in living than many other writers who are laboring hard, very hard, to get somewhere.

But as he surely knew, comparisons are odious. And while challenges are good, devoting one’s life to being better than other human beings at something is surely not the most impressive, or even original, goal. So what would be the value in being more anti-ambitious than anybody else either? It’s much interesting to start noticing what’s around you and instead of saying important things at it, try to make your writing part of it.