There are more and more languages disappearing every day and by the end of the century it is possible that half of all existing languages will have vanished. Bob Holman of the Bowery Poetry Club, an anchor for local arts in New York City, says that it is the great tragedy of our time. There are laws to protect plants and animals, why not languages? But Holman isn’t sitting back. He is cultivating poetry, writing poetry, and making documentaries about poets. Most recently a project that re-traces Allen Ginsberg’s trip to India and a documentary film on the griot’s of west Africa. You can learn more about Holman and the Bowery Poetry Club at their site. You can also find Holman’s United States of Poetry, a mult-disk DVD compendium of American Poetry, right here. Less