—Sam W. Teller

KEVIN B. HOLDEN ’05

Having taken between six and eight classes every semester would be an impressive achievement for any soon-to-be Harvard graduate. Add to that one unpublished novel, 14 published poems, three editorships on Harvard student literary publications, and fluency in four foreign languages, and you have a general idea of Kevin B. Holden ’05’s college career.

Holden, a Winthrop House resident and a literature concentrator, is a self-declared poet, and hopes to publish his own collection of poems within the next four years. “I am a poet, it is what I do the most,” says Holden, “poetry is the biggest part of me and it has always been a part of my life.”

Holden is the editor-in-chief of “The Gamut,” an annual poetry review which will be holding a student poetry reading during Arts First; he is a poetry board member of “The Advocate,” a literary magazine; and he is an editor of “Cinematic,” a film review magazine.

Apart from poetry, Holden is also interested in continental philosophy, which is why he chose to be a literature concentrator. “Although I have always felt more at home with poetry, I needed more help with philosophy,” he says. “I didn’t like how the philosophy department focuses on analytical studies, so I chose literature instead.”

Holden recently earned summa cum laude on his thesis, which combined his interests in literature, poetry, philosophy, and visual arts.

“It was very exciting,” he says, “I looked at the works of Samuel Beckett, [Robert] Ryman, and [Andy] Warhol, creating a thesis about visual and literary pieces mixed with philosophy. It was about death and negative dialectics, that which is unsayable.”

Holden’s fascination with language extends to foreign tongues as well, and he makes an effort to enjoy poems in their original form. He is especially interested in Russian literature, a preference he credits to a class he took his first year at Harvard.

“I took a freshman seminar on 20th Century Russian poetry. It absolutely blew me away. There has been so much suffering that there is a power and brilliance to this poetry unlike anything I had ever seen. I became obsessed with [Russian poetry] and learned Russian so that I could read it in its native text.”

This summer, Holden will pursue his interest in Eastern Europe by traveling there on a Radcliffe Fellowship.

“I am going to Russia to do some community service projects there and to meet poets. I will try to translate some things and write with the poets I meet. I really hope to learn from them.” His travel plans also include Poland and some destinations that are yet to be determined.

Holden also won the Harvard Cambridge Fellowship and intends to study at Cambridge University in England next fall. There he hopes to earn a master’s degree in philosophy through a program that synthesizes philosophy and literature, with which he will then pursue a career as a professor and poet. The only thing that might alter his path is his love of the circus, where he used to be a tightrope walker.