Anselm Hollo: Posthumous Pick of the Week [ed. Terence Winch]

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Parting

            after Hugo Ball

don’t go is what I want you to tell me

the rainless wind from the south

will make me long for you

 

tell me these are beautiful days

to have you here to look at your mouth

and to listen

                                    don’t go

tell me life pleases you

tell my voice to go on and on

tell me you will be happy and of good cheer

even when I am gone

 

tell me I’m stupid

a child or feathers and a small brain

held in your hand

then tell me I know my way back to you

even at night

                                    even in the rain

that hides the stars from my sight

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Anselm Hollo was born on 12 April 1934 in Helsinki, Finland. He died at age 78 on 29 January 2013 in Boulder, Colorado. For more information, click here.

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                                      Jani Hanninen (Finland), p. b. serie, acrylic on canvas, 2016.

Comments

[Clarinda]

Anselm— such a force of nature. I love the almost childlike voice of this poem. Anselm in his way could be beautifully childlike too

[Ron Padgett]

Wonderful poem. Wonderful man.

[lally]

a friend since the 1960s, I was happy to see him in this century a few years before he passed and he was still his uniquely engaging self, like his poems...

[Maureen Owen]

Miss him so much! Here he lives again!

[David Lehman]

Admirable presentation of a fine poem. Once when I got John Ashbery into a discussion of whether God exists, I mentioned "Saint Anselm's proof" and John replied that he thought it was hollow.

[Chris Mason]

Even when reading such a beautiful sweet love poem, I hear Anselm's big philosophical laugh and I smile. Thanks for posting this!

[Simon Schuchat]

I was going to say a truly missed presence, but his poems remain and in that sense so does he.
Thanks for remembering.

[Phyllis Rosenzweig]

Nice. Anselm was such a presence. Thanks

[Cinda Kornblum]

I wish we COULD tell his voice to go on and on.