Bob Holman

poetry films with the spoken word master

We Are the Dinosaur
Beside Myself

Founder of the Bowery Poetry Club and the spoken word label Mouth Almighty/Mercury, Bob Holman is a poet best known for his defining role in the spoken word, slam, digital and film/video worlds. His films include the Poetry Spots series for WNYC-TV (six years, 3 Emmys), a 5-part series The United States of Poetry on PBS and Language Matters, a documentary on poetry and endangered languages, also on PBS. He has read his work on MTV’s Spoken Word Unplugged and HBO Def Poetry Jam and has published a dozen books, most recently Bob Holman’s India Journals that documents the making of Ginsberg’s Karma, a film about the Beats in India and the birth of the hippie movement. He has three children and five grandchildren and lives above the Bowery Poetry Club in New York City.

We Are the Dinosaur
Stills from the Film
Credits/Notes
Written & performed by Bob Holman
Filmed & edited by H. Paul Moon
Music by Marc Ribot & Brad Jones
Associate director Kyabell Glass
"We Are the Dinosaur" is a street-rant lament for the state of the planet delivered to an unsuspecting public seemingly content to yawn and go about its business while the Poet bumrushes the Courthouse, whispers in the ear of the Anonymous Businessman, suggests a cannibal diet at the site of the Nation’s first capital, takes flight at the Oculus near the World Trade Center, and swims against the implacable tide of humanity in Times Square. With a wrench-raucous score by Marc Ribot, energized-intrusion cinematography by director H. Paul Moon, and an over-the-top-and-then-some performance by poet Bob Holman, this poem promises to either explode the dead-soul reactions of the populace to climate crisis or become a deconstructive language bomb that blasts open the Gates to Kingdom Come.
An official selection/finalist in the 2023 Zebra Poetry Film Festival (Berlin, Germany), Midwest Video Poetry Fest (Madison, Wisconsin), Aotearoa Poetry Film Festival (Wellington, New Zealand), Art Visuals & Poetry Film Festival Vienna (Austria), VideoBardo Festival Internacional de Videopoesía (Buenos Aires, Argentina); and 2024 11th International Video Poetry Festival (Athens, Greece), Weimar Poetry Film Award (Germany), La Poesia Che Si Vede (Italy), and Hombres Videopoetry Award (Italy) where it won Best Performance.
Beside Myself
Stills from the Film
Credits/Notes
filmed & edited by H. Paul Moon
music by David T. Little
written & recited by Bob Holman, with:
Molissa Fenley
Marcos de la Fuente
Vanesa Álvarez Díaz
Leon de la Fuente
Anne Waldman
Ram Devineni
Christian Clarke
Charles Bernstein
Katherine Sloan
Angela Sloan
Kyabell Glass
Hannah Beerman
Sono Kuwayama
Ki Smith
“BESIDE MYSELF” is a poem/film that engages the reader/viewer to trade places with the poet for a generative new thing that can, with your help, change the world.
Step outside yourself, look back at yourself, whom do you see? That’s the question Bob Holman asks in “BESIDE MYSELF.” Fighting the metaphorical with the literal, H. Paul Moon's film captures a small band of Bob's friends voicing the poem in alternating identities, scored by composer David T. Little, for this meditative reflection on A.I. and the life cycle of the creative process.
Official selection at 2024 AMT Film Festival (New York City), Wheaton Film Festival (Wheaton, Maryland), Aotearoa Poetry Film Festival (Wellington, New Zealand); and 2025 James River Short Film Showcase (Richmond, Virginia), 12th International Video Poetry Festival (Athens, Greece), West Chester Film Festival (West Chester, Pennsylvania), Poeticas Film Festival (Manteca, California), and Weimar Poetry Film Award (Weimar, Germany).
Presentation History
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