cover image Bob Holman's the Collect Call of the Wild

Bob Holman's the Collect Call of the Wild

Bob Holman. Henry Holt & Company, $12 (158pp) ISBN 978-0-8050-3672-5

Poetry activist and co-editor of Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Holman seeks simultaneously to reconstrue traditional definitions of poetry and to broaden its audience. This collection, an ample grab-bag of poems Holman wrote (and performed) in this decade and the last, testifies to the raw power and irreverent humor of spoken-word poetry but also exemplifies its unevenness and often arbitrary attentions. Many pieces can scarcely, in any standard sense, be called poetry; in its entirety, ``My Shirt'' reads, ``I like to put it on/ My arms get long that way.'' This is, however, precisely Holman's point--that the confines of poetry are wider than generally thought and that the definition of poetry matters less than the relationship between the poem and the poet (and, ultimately, the audience). This view is underscored in Holman's endnotes, which tellingly are often more engaging than much of the poetry. This is a collection not everyone will like, but it is bound to interest anyone curious about trends in contemporary poetry. (Aug.)