Corvus

Author: Anselm Hollo

Publisher: Coffee House Press (1995)

“I await Anselm’s new poems with more eagerness than those of any other living poet. His work is ‘news that stays news,’ a poetic gazette that is one of our times most accurate neural readouts. If you can’t remember your way to your heart, Anselm’s poems will show you.”

–Andrei Codrescu

“The bedrock solidness of Anselm Hollo’s poems makes as ever a place of refuge and delight in these meager times. Thank God for his humor, else we’d all be dead.”

–Robert Creeley

“Here is a poet capable of teaching the curious how to read what some would still call avant-garde poetry. These poems are snips and snaps of contemporary life run together with a taut gathering stitch and played off against particular moments and figures in the history of ideas, literature, and politics. This dexterous and often humorous interplay creates moments of surprise, as in ‘Why There Is A Cat Curfew In Our House.’ The poem, an energetic narrative about a family of raccoons coming in through the cat door late at night, ends with a wry nod to the desire for more: ‘& if I were a Victorian poet there’d be a moral/but late in my century all I can say/is that she did of course remind me of my mother.’ Notes at the back help unlock the references for those who are not content to just go along for the ride.”

–Boston Review