Poets live their dreams. I am living this dream. It is not an empty dream, but an active one. The dream is imagined, but not imaginary. It is action, not fiction. “Thought,” as Tristan Tzara said, “is made in the mouth.”
Thought is made in the mouth
You don’t think of it ... until you rap it out
You gotta raprap till everything gets said
You gotta raprap ... are you living in yr head?
Pondering, wandering
Floundering aroundering
Communicate! Reciprocate!
Conversate! Don't hesitate.
In the beginning ... was the Rap!
I am here as a poet, and, like all poets, I represent nothing. Poetry is the enemy of nationalism, the enemy of boundaries and borders of all kinds. I am Bob Holman, not from the United States of America, but from the United States of Poetry. The United States of Poetry is in fact a project I dreamed of that actually became a television series in the U.S. And then the television series became a book. (Compare prices here if you’d like to own a copy of the book.) And a CD. And a Web site.
The poets in The United States of Poetry include Nobel Prize-winners like Czeslaw Milosz, Derek Walcott, and Joseph Brodsky -- may he rest Wherever. It includes Rita Dove, a former Poet Laureate of the United States, and Jimmy Carter, a former President of the United States. But it also includes poets who write in Tlingit, an Eskimo language, in Pidgin, a Hawaiian language, in French, in all the languages that are represented in my country.
Now I am working on another dream: The World of Poetry. I am here to invite you to participate in this dream. The World of Poetry has already been invited to utilize the poetry databank that the Maison Internationale de la Poésie has created.
Poetry is becoming a force in the world, not because of mass market corporate strategies, but because the poets themselves, ourselves, are beginning to realize that our dreams are important not only to us but are important for the world.
And we must be heard. This dream of poetry infects the world with possibilities beyond the political. Help me. Talk to me. Be in touch with me through Arthur.
If you know the perfect poet for The World of Poetry, that is wonderful! If you know the great poem that must be heard around the world, please tell me. If you know the filmmaker who can work with the poet to make this, we are really talking. And if you know someone who can pay for
this!...
And since I know I am talking to a bunch of poets, let me assure you that, yes, you are welcome to send me your own poems, too. All poems in the project will be filmed in their original language; translations will be made over the Internet.
So make me stop here. I mean, let me start here. You, the poets of the 20th Biennial, the Year of the Dream, let’s make the dream real: a United Nations of Poetry, a World of Poetry.
We are on a mission that comes down to our ears like a haircut on an autumn day. Poets of the World, Rewrite! I mean, Unite! I take off my hat to you. I come to you, hat in hand, a big hat of words. I will see you in your dreams.
And now, like any good poet, I will conclude with a poem:
Love Poems
I love poems
~Bob Holman
