Doug Holder was born in New York City in 1955. He graduated from the State University College at Buffalo with a B.A. in History in 1977, and from Harvard University with an M.A. in English and American Literature and Language in 1997. Holder founded the Ibbetson Street Press in 1998, and since then has published over 30 books and chaps of poetry, and twenty issues of the journal "Ibbetson Street" Holder's taped interviews with contemporary poets and writers are housed at Harvard University, Buffalo University, and Poet's House (NYC) libraries. He founded the Somerville News Writers Festival with Timothy Gager in 2003, and is the Arts/Editor for The Somerville News, as well as the Boston editor of Poesy Magazine, and the book review editor of the Wilderness House Literary Review. Some of his poetry and articles have appeared in "The Boston Globe," "Hunger," "the new renaissance," "Café Review," "American Poetry Monthly," "Presa," "Poetca," and numerous anthologies such as "Inside the Outside: An Anthology of American Avant-Garde Poets." ( Presa Press) He is the director of the Newton Free Library Poetry Series in Newton, Mass.

THE BEAT GENERATION OF POETS AND WRITERS

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HUGH FOX

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A.D. WINANS

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THE SMALL OR ALTERNATIVE PRESS IN GENERAL

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MIKE BASINSKI

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JACK POWERS (FOUNDER OF STONE SOUP POETS)

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ROBERT K. JOHNSON

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ED GALING

Leave a message for Doug on the SITE
FORUM

SELECTED POETRY

by
Doug Holder

THEY WILL MAKE DIAMONDS FROM MY DUST

I read in the New York Times Book Review that some funeral homes offer a service where they take your cremated remains and compress them into diamonds.

They told me
that they will take my dust
the ash of my bone
the undifferentiated
gray -
wisp of flakes
and compress them
into diamonds.
I will ride
on someone's index finger
or perhaps
pierced into
my nephew's nose...
I will be all what I wasn't
hard, crystalline
angles
cold and brilliant
with the icy
charm of a sociopath -
something to look
forward to
when I am old
I am told....

© Doug Holder

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AM I A MAN OF BONE OR FLESH?

Am I a Man of Bone or Flesh?

I am more
than stick
or bone
an empty
coat rack
for no one's
home.

Can you still
feel my supple flesh,
like a fruit's
skin blushing
with its ripeness?

And yes
I know
where I
stand
and the bone
lays perilously close
to the flesh
of my hand -

Still I am more
than brittle bone,
the cold
unfeeling face
of glacial stone.

© Doug Holder

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THE PERFECT LAWN

Far from Boston
I will neuter it.
I will
mow that plot
before the plot thickens,
cut all the intrusive
outside of the box
gay blades -
In my narrow mind
I picture a broad lawn
a perfect rectangle
where I draw the line
with the demarcation of lime -
no random weed
or itinerant seed
will drop
will mix
will be felt
on my flawless
green pelt.

© Doug Holder

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TO KILL

But deep down
Buried below the
Judicious flourishes
You liberally dispense
There is that
Fascination
With the cat’s
Studied approach
Of his prey
His coiled
Serpentine passion
His lethal spring
His teeth
Glistening studs
In the side of
A blood-soaked neck.
You are only
One step behind -
Can it be blood
That feeds
The life
Of your mind.

© Doug Holder

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