Bob Holman has been dubbed a member of the “poetry pantheon” by the New York Times Magazine, “ringmaster of the spoken word” by the New York Daily News, and “poetry czar” by the Village Voice. The San Francisco Poetry Flash calls him “the best MC in the USA” and “our generation’s Ezra Pound.” His last collection of poems, A Couple of Ways of Doing Something, a collaboration with Chuck Close, was exhibited at the Peggy Guggenheim Museum during the Venice Biennale and published by Aperture. Holman ran the infamous poetry slams at the Nuyorican Poets Café from 1988 to 1996. In 1995, he founded Mouth Almighty/Mercury Records, the first-ever major spoken word label. The United States of Poetry, a TV series he produced for PBS, won the 1996 INPUT (International Public Television) Award. Holman is Visiting Professor of Writing at Columbia School of the Arts, founder and proprietor of the Bowery Poetry Club, and artistic director of Study Abroad on the Bowery, a certificate program in applied poetics.
Moderated by David Lehman, poetry coordinator at the School of Writing.
-- sdh
