By Jora Dawson
On Thursday, Feb. 18, American poet and poetry activist Bob Holman came to speak at UH Maui College. During the event Holman showed his new “Cento” video, in which 50 poets read original literature.
Holman—who is a spoken-word poet and an activist for the arts–had come to impart the importance of languages, and that they should be protected. “This is a 15-minute video that took eight years to make,” he said.
The video consisted of 50 poets from around the world. Poets that Holman had traveled far to see; he had spanned the globe to include 50 people from 50 endangered languages. Holman cared a great deal about “orality,” a word that in his mind refers to spoken poetry. He mentioned orality often as he spoke. Not surprising, considering he is a spoken-word poet.
Holman has been passionate about poetry since he was a child. He graduated from Columbia University, where he also taught poetry. Holman has also produced poetry for PBS and hosted poetry slams in New York (at the Nuyorican Restaurant) between 1988 and 1996. Sufficed to say, Bob Holman has based his life around poetry and the spoken word.
At about 30 minutes in, Holman announced “Cento.” The lights went off and the giant screen behind the lectern lit up. The video began with different poets converging in separate pictures, to form a checkerboard pattern. Shortly after, the first poet was revealed. Words lay themselves across the screen as the poet spoke. Throughout the video, random poets delivered one line under a specific subcategory, which included topics such as death, life, freedom and food.
Despite not understanding 49 of the languages, the students sat rapt in attention. Perhaps it was the character of the people in the film; all renowned poets of their region speaking endangered languages. The foreign poets were translated through words onscreen, words that saw a unique font for each new speaker.
Directly after the video had finished Holman’s assistant handed out flashcards for students to list their questions. Five minutes later, she gathered the flashcards and began reading questions aloud. One such question mentioned that the student’s favorite poet was Aleksandr Pushkin, then asked who was Holman’s favorite.
Without notice, Holman sprang into a colorful recital of Pushkin’s “The Other Thought.” Holman’s animated delivery was welcomed by the crowd; he bellowed and snickered his way through the performance.
Shortly thereafter, Holman discussed the Hawaiian language. “Hawaiian is noted for having the fewest number of phonemes of any language,” he said. He went on to mention there were 17 phonemes. Five vowels, five drawn-out vowels (a vowel with a line over it) and seven consonants.
At one point, Holman spoke of writing in Wales. “In Wales, novelists are given a stipend so they can have an audience big enough to write for,” he said. Students seemed surprised that a government would pay for someone to write a novel. Holman then spoke of how Welsh is currently taught in the public school systems of Wales.
Holman asked questions of the audience as well, though most went unanswered. One such question regarding the Cento was: “And when did you know it was a poem? Or did you think—this isn’t a poem?”
If there were crickets in the audience, they would have been audible right after that question.
As the long hour was winding down, Holman fielded any final questions. He then gave a resounding “thank you for coming” closing. Most students began filing out, while several made their way forward to talk in person.
