Bob Holman is Founding Director of Bowery Arts+Science; in 2001 he
founded the Bowery Poetry Club, where much of the organization’s
programming occurs. Dubbed “Ringmaster of the Spoken Word” (NY
Daily News), “Poetry Czar” (Village Voice), and “Dean of the
Scene” (Seventeen Magazine), he studied poetry at Columbia where he
now teaches: he finds it fulfilling, becoming the guy he used to laugh
at (he also teaches at NYU). He has published sixteen works of poetry,
most recently Sing This One Back To Me (Coffee House Press) and A
Couple of Ways of Doing Something, a collaboration with Chuck Close.
His 3-part TV series exploring endangered languages and cultures in
West Africa and Israel, “On the Road with Bob Holman,” aired on
LinkTV; he created the award-winning PBS, The United States of Poetry.
Crossing State Lines; An American Renga—a collaboration of 54 US
poets, edited with Carol Muske-Dukes, was published by Farrar Strauss
in 2012. He is currently working on two Endangered Language Projects:
Khonsay: A Poem of Many Tongues, with each line from a different
endangered tongue; and “Language Matters with Bob Holman,” a
90-minute special on Endangered Languages for PBS produced by David
Grubin with Holman as host.
