Awaking His Inner ‘Minotaur’

UCLA Cognitive Science Professor Keith Holyoak’s New Book Features His Poetry and Son’s Illustrations

‘Poetry is the most unpopular art form there is,’ admits Keith Holyoak. ‘It doesn’t sell.’ But poetry is Holyoak’s passion, but it’s not what he does to pay the bills. In fact, it might seem as something of a paradox to some that Holyoak, a longtime UCLA professor of psychology, a leader in his field, has chosen to make a side career of crafting verse. His new book, ‘My Minotaur,’ is a collection of 50 of his poems from 1998 to 2006, and he has enlisted his son, Jim Holyoak, to illustrate them. Holyoak will sign copies of his book, ‘My Minotaur,’ on March 20, 6 to 10 p.m. at Bleicher/Golightly gallery in Santa Monica, where an exhibit of Jim’s illustrations is opening today. Holyoak’s Alphabet streets-home in Pacific Palisades, is cozy and professorial, with shelves of books. A serene garden awaits behind the house. While Holyoak is the author of eight academic books on his field of scholarship, books of poetry are relatively new to him. His first such book, ‘Facing the Moon’ (2007), was a translation of the work of two pillars of Chinese poetry, Li Bai and Du Fu. But ‘My Minotaur’ is much more personal. The book’s title is derived from ‘The Farmer Gored By His Bull,’ a poem based on a true incident from his upbringing in Langley, a farm town just east of Vancouver, Canada. ‘When I started to write poetry, I started going back to childhood,’ Holyoak says. ‘The Carlsons lived down the road and when I was 15, I was home on holiday.   The poem is dedicated to the late Len Carlson.   ’This farmer was kind of old school,’ says Holyoak, who explains that ‘he kept his bull to breed cows and he never cut the bull’s horns off. The bull was loose.’   When Mr. Carlson disappeared, it was Holyoak and his father who discovered his body in the barn.   ’It was my first encounter with death, and it was a violent death,’ Holyoak recalls. ‘He was sort of an uncle figure to me.’   The relationship between man and nature arises often in the work of both Holyoaks. It returns in Keith’s poem ‘The Cougar.’ ‘It’s my best friend’s story,’ he explains. ‘He was out hunting and he and a cougar had a little face-off.’ After earning degrees at the University of British Columbia and Stanford, Holyoak taught for a decade at the University of Michigan.   Jim, 31, is Holyoak’s son with first wife Hattie Hogeterp, from the Netherlands. Holyoak and Hogeterp also have a daughter, Jessica, 28, a psychology student at University of British Columbia.   With his second wife, Patricia Chang, Holyoak had son Neil, 22, a muisician, and Vanessa, 16. Today, Holyoak is married to Hongjing Lu, mother of their cherubic six-month-old boy, Dylan.   In 1986, Holyoak Pacific Palisades with Chang in 1986 when he received his position at UCLA’s psychology department, where he has become a leader in his field   ’One of the reasons I ended up here,’ Holyoak says, ‘is because, in many ways, it sort of felt outside of the city. There’s a closeness of nature here that reminds me of British Columbia.’   Holyoak has a penchant for collaborating with family members.   ’Both of my Chinese wives helped me to translate the poems of two of my favorite poets. I don’t actually speak Chinese.’   He still has a studio”a converted boat shed”in British Columbia on Salt Spring Island, where he and Jim meet to work on their respective arts.   Jim Holyoak recalls how ‘My Minotaur’ came together.   ’I discovered that dad had been secretly writing poems for years,’ Jim says. ‘I’m 31 now, I was about 20 when I found out. We were both getting into writing and we bonded over it.   ’One day, we were sitting in the backyard in the Palisades and he just came up with this idea that I should make up some drawings to illustrate the poems.’   Forty out of 50 illustrations, representing three years of work, will hang at Bleicher/Golightly. Originals and prints will be available for sale.   Unfortunately, Jim will not be able to personally attend the reception, where Keith will present a PowerPoint presentation. But the busy Concordia University fine arts student will be there via Skype. ‘I’m really proud of my dad and I’m super-excited for him,’ Jim says. Robert G. Morrison, a cognitive neuroscientist and a professor of psychology at Loyola University in Chicago, has known Keith Holyoak for 13 years since he was a graduate student at UCLA. He still works with Holyoak, and he calls his mentor ‘the greatest Renaissance man I’ve ever met.’ Morrison recalls the dramatic way he had learned about Holyoak’s secret obsession. ‘I don’t think any one of his psychology friends knew [he was writing poetry],’ says Morrison, who recalls being at a crossroads: ‘I was leaving academia and I told Keith that I wanted to do something that would bridge science and the arts. He went to a file cabinet I had never seen him go into and he pulled out a copy of London magazine and pointed out this poem that was his. That was his coming-out-of-the-filing-cabinet moment. And basically he has never looked back.’ ‘Some people consider Keith the godfather of analytical research,’ says Christine Thuy-Anh Vu, who, in 2000, began three years of undergraduate research in analogies and visual cognitions under Holyoak and graduate student Morrison. The Santa Monica resident recalls ‘the three of us were talking about science and art all the time. Keith knew my interest in the arts. I was studying art history and working at the Hammer Museum as a docent. ‘Keith is a rare exception [in academia],’ Morrison says. ‘He’s a leader in the field of relational reasoning, analogical reasoning. He’s really the world’s expert at that. And he’s so incredibly gifted [at poetry]. For me, it’s fascinating to see where both sides are operating.’ The ‘My Minotaur’ father-son book launch runs through March 28 at Bleicher/Golightly. Contact: info@bgartdealings.com or 310-878-2784. Keith’s work can be found at keithholyoak.com. Jim’s Web site is monstersforreal.com.