04/17/2026
As we approach our 50th Anniversary, Atlantic Center for the Arts is proud to celebrate National Poetry Month and all the incredible poets who have graced our acclaimed residency program.
Bob Holman is the founder of the Bowery Poetry Club and the author of 22 poetry collections (print/audio/video), most recently two books written 50 years apart the unspoken (ybk/bowery), life poem (YBK/Bowery) as well as Bob Holman’s India Journals (Rattapallax), The Cutouts (Matisse) (Pekaboo Press) and Sing This One Back to Me (Coffee House Press). He has taught at Princeton, Columbia, NYU, Bard, and the New School. As the original slam master and a director of the Nuyorican Poets Café, creator of the world's first spoken word poetry record label, Mouth Almighty/Mercury, and the founder and artistic director of the Bowery Poetry Club, Holman has played a central role in the spoken word, slam and digital poetry movements of the last several decades.
Co-founder of the endangered language alliance, Holman's study of hip-hop and West African oral traditions led to his current work with endangered languages. He is the producer/director/host of various films, including the United States of Poetry, a PBS series that aired nationally and won the International Public Television Award, and On the Road with Bob Holman. His film about language loss and revitalization, Language Matters with Bob Holman, winner of the Berkeley Film Festival's Documentary of the Year Award, was produced by David Grubin and aired nationally on PBS. Holman’s poetry film, We are the Dinosaur, directed by Paul Moon, featured at a dozen film festivals, was the basis of Holman’s 2024 tour of Oslo, Vienna, Tbilisi, and Tokyo. In 2025, he was selected by the Venice Biennale to perform his poetry on Venice’s streets, canals and bridges, as well as in theaters.
Bob Holman
