Book Description

Vow to Poetry is a trumpet call from our most iconoclastic poet that tears down the walls of prescribed creative processes. This stimulating mix of autobiography, interviews, and essays reveals a life possessed by the muse. You've seen the "safe" versions, now comes this unconventional, irreverent, transgressive volume.

Anne Waldman ran the St. Mark's Poetry Project in New York for over a decade. She is the co-founder with Allen Ginsberg of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at The Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado, where she teaches and directs the Master of Fine Arts program in Writing and Poetics.

Contents>/B>

Author's Note, 13
Prelude: "My Long & Only Afterlife", 15
Feminafesto, 19
My Life a List, 23
Oppositional Poetics, 48
That Light Is Sandino, 49
Managua Sketches, 51
Seeing What Happens (Interview with Joyce Jenkins) , 54
Kali Yuga Poetics: A Manifesto, 60
"Take Me to Your Poets!", 74
Loom Down the Thorough Narrow, 81
Hermeneutical (Light to Read By), 91
Vow to Poetry (Conversation with Randy Roark), 96
Sikelianos's Delphic Idea: Site & Poetic Legacy, 123
Hags, Nuns, & Magpie Scholars, 135
The Outrider Legacy (Interview with Mark DuCharme), 142
Poetry as Siddhi, 155
Noosphere & the Six Realms, 167
I Is Another: Dissipative Structures, 173
The Talisman Interview (Interview with Edward Foster), 192
Warring God Charnel Ground, 205
Deviant Identities, 213
Minstrel Bard, 228
Last Days, Hours, 230
Burroughs: Hurry Up. It's Time, 235
Go-Between Between, 238
Grasping the Broom More Tightly Now (Interview with Eric Lorberer), 247
Creative Writing Life [Reading/Writing/Performance] Experiments, 247
Alphabetic Tesserae, 262
Epic & Performance, 266
"Surprise Each Other": The Art of Collaboration (Interview with Lisa Birman), 272
Spare Us Your Epiphanies, 280
Marriage Marriage: A Sentence Sentence, 283
Muse, 286
My Life a Book, 289

Acknowledgements, 292
Selected Bibliography, 295

Oppositional Poetics

"wozu Dichter in durftiger Zeit?"-Holderlin from "Bread & Wine"

How do we ... Read more

Book Description
The Stupa of Borobudur in Java is one of the architectural wonders of the world, designed as both a mandala and as an aid for the Buddhist pilgrim that can be read as a holy book. It has inspired Anne Waldman to create a work which is at once a walking meditation, a “cultural intervention,” a “recovery” of a sacred site, and a take on contemporary reality and how the busy “monkey brain” (as it is called in Buddhism) works and travels. Exploratory and meditative, even playful at times, it expands the sense of invocation and incantation that Waldman is celebrated for, while also reflecting an engaged political/cultural awareness. ... Read more

Amazon.com
This expanded edition of Anne Waldman's poems and essays adds 20 poems and three essays to the original. Published in City Lights' Pocket Poets series, the collection is the perfect size to carry in a pocket or purse. The poems, however, are powerhouses meant to be read aloud. Waldman reigns as queen of the performance poem; in this book she focuses on the chant and the ritual rant. She's "here to sing the power," and, believe me, you can feel it.Book Description

Anne Waldman takes the opportunity with this twentieth-anniversary expanded edition to add twenty poems to this collection that brings into focus her lifelong engagement with "Chant" as central to contemporary performative poetry.

Here are spells, invocations, laments, ritual rants. Archaic beliefs in magic and ecstasy meet current notions of the power of the spoken word. Waldman writes, ""The poem is a textured energy field or modal structure. The poems for performance seem to manifest as psychological states of mind. They come together in a mental, verbal, physical, and emotional form, making their particular demands on my voice and body. I am the 'energumen.' The poem is the experience."" Also included in this book are three essays on the oral tradition in poetry. One essay discusses the history and occasion of the title poem. The others treat such topics as performance art and poetic tradition, ethnopoetics, intoxication and transformation, Tibetan Buddhism, and the renewed ascendency of feminine energy in writing. Anne Waldman, world renowned for her high-energy poetry performances, is the author of over thirty books and chapbooks of poetry. She is the co-founder and director of The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

Customer Reviews (2)

Present Day Icon, chant and philosophy has impact
Anne Waldman is a literary figure that feeds off of her own inborn energy.Energy is what you think of when you think of chants.Having been raised in a tradition of chants, i find her Fast Speaking Woman Chant extremely moving.She seeks to represent all but also exhault all individuality.The book is a nice compact perfect bound book.Easily transported in your medical coat, or business pocket.

Fast Speaking Woman
"Fast Speaking Woman" is one of the best poems I've ever read, and it captures everything that the Beats attempted (and attempt) to capture in their stream of conciousness writing. She's defining herself,but she is also defining every other woman, because we can all do what shedid. She is uplifting, and fabulous! The rest of the chants are aweinspiring, especially when chanted aloud so that you can get the fullexpereince. If you like Allen Ginsberg, et. all, you will love Waldman. Sheis a true Beat woman, who does not need to define herself through the menthat she associates with. ... Read more

Book Description
drama ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Out of Print?Out of my Mind!
To Whom It May Concern: Buy this book!Or borrow it your literary neighbor, or steal it from the library; anything, just get you hands on it.Out of This World is a comprehensive lexicon of of the life of theinfamous St. Mark's in the Bowery Poetry Project.From Ginsberg toAshberry, from O'Hara to St. Francis, from the down and dirty free verse ofPaul Beatty and Jim Carroll to the the luminous prose of Mary Montenegro,this book is finger lickin' good.While it is dissappointing at times notto have more that one or two pieces by each poet, it gives you a scope thatfew works do.Elegantly edited and sequenced by Anne Waldman, theproject's long-time director, Out of This World is a five-pound gem worthdodging library security or the wait for an out of print copy.Dig it. ... Read more

Book Description
Anne Waldman has been speaking about the "outrider" tradition since 1974 when she and Allen Ginsberg founded the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa, a Buddhist-inspired university in Boulder, Colorado. This book gathers essays, poems and rants, an interview with her by Matthew Cooperman, and an interview by her with Nicaraguan poet Ernesto Cardenal in an attempt to further articulate a sense of this tradition from Walt Whitman to the present. Not a dry presentation, this book is a fierce and loving look at what poetry can be. Outrider is an invocation of "lineage" as a challenge toward examining the practice of poetry and the links of its history. This awareness of lineage encompasses both what has been inherited and what needs be passed on.

Waldman's Outrider will be a provocative contribution to a post-millennium poetics.

"The Outrider holds a premise of imaginative consciousness. The Outrider rides the edge—parallel to the mainstream, is the shadow to the mainstream, is the consciousness or soul of the mainstream whether it recognizes its existence or not. It cannot be co-opted, it cannot be bought. Or rides through the chaos, maintaining a stance of 'negative capability,' but also does not give up that projective drive, or its original identity that demands that it intervene on the culture. This is not about being an Outsider. The Outrider might be an outlaw, but not an outsider. Rather, the outrider is a kind of shaman, the true spiritual 'insider.' The shaman travels to zones of light and shadow. The shaman travels to edges of madness and death and comes back to tell the stories."--from the essay "Premises of Consciousness: Notes on 'Howl'"

Outrider is an invocation of "lineage" as a challenge toward examining the practice of poetry and the links of its history. ... Read more

Book Description

"Waldman is at the apex of her career, and the legitimate heir to Allen Ginsberg's crown as America's underground 'poet-ambassador' laureate."-Colorado Springs Independent

In the Room of Never Grieve charts Anne Waldman's dynamic career and reveals a mature, wise, and spiritual poet with enormous energy and vast literary powers. A CD featuring Waldman's performance of her signature work accompanies this exhilarating and vital addition to American poetry. While reading these poems is essential, hearing the poet's voice lift them off the page is transcendent.

Anne Waldman is a poet, performer, cultural activist, professor, and author of over forty books. In an ongoing -mission to "make the world safe for poetry," she teaches seminars and -performs her work around the globe.

Customer Reviews (1)

An accompanying audio CD contains live performances
In The Room Of Never Grieve: New And Selected Poems 1985-2003 collects and showcases the works of American poet and educator Anne Waldman, offers the reader her highly recommended verse enhanced with notes, commentary, and personal reminiscences. An accompanying audio CD containing live performances of selected classic verses emphasizing the human condition, dialogue, everyday life and the craving to reach beyond the mundane. Crack in the World: I see the crack in the world / My body thinks it, sees the gaping crack in the world / My body does it for me to see / Blood flowing through the body crack / Body, send your rivers to the moon... ... Read more

Book Description

As cultural absurdities, apathy-inspiring ambient noise, and political and ecological disasters threaten the 21st-century world, art's role in engaging society and coalescing dissent becomes more apparent and more urgent. Civil Disobediences offers a manual for understanding poetry's history and enacting its ultimate power to dismantle and recreate political and cultural realities.

Composed of essays, lectures and teaching materials by leading contemporary poets and scholars, this anthology explores the craft of poetry, as well as the history of poetic/political action in the U.S. and abroad, the development of ancient and modern poetic forms, the legacy of world-renowned poets, and the intersections between poetry and spirituality. It also provides concrete advice about bringing poetry into your local community and ensuring that "poetry is news that stays news."

Editor Anne Waldman is an internationally acclaimed poet, performer, cultural activist, and distinguished -professor of poetics at Naropa University's Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics. She is the author of over 40 books, including Vow to Poetry: Essays, Interviews, & Manifestos and the recent collection In the Room of Never Grieve: New and Selected Poems 1985–2003.

Editor Lisa Birman is a poet and writer from Melbourne, Australia. Her books include Some Things-Poems and Translations, Deportation Poems, and the forthcoming possibly. Birman is the co-founder of Movie Star Press and co-director of Naropa University's Summer Writing Program.

Contributors include: Helen Adam, Ammiel Alcalay, Amiri Baraka, Ted Berrigan, Robin Blaser, Reed Bye, Jack Collum, Robert Creeley, Samuel R. Delany, Robert Duncan, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Alan Gilbert, Allen Ginsberg, James Grauerholtz, Barbara Guest, Bobbie Louise Hawkins, Anselm Hollo, Laird Hunt, Pierre Joris, Joanne Kyger, Ann Lauterbach, Harryette Mullen, Eileen Myles, Alice Notley, Michael Ondaatje, Sonia Sanchez, Edward Sanders, Eleni Sikelianos, Gary Snyder, Cole Swenson, Arthur Sze, Steven Taylor, Robert Tejada, Lorenzo Thomas and more.

Customer Reviews (2)

YOUR DUTY AS A POET
It's your duty as a poet to speak the world into a new existence!Hurray!This anthology is packed with inspiring essays and fueled with Ms. Waldmans passion for "keeping the world safe for poetry".Be inspired!

Offers a series of essays, lectures, and teaching materials
The collaborative compilation and editorial organization of Anne Waldman (poet, performer, cultural activist, and Distinguished Professor of Poetics at Naropa University's Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics) and Lisa Birman (Australian poet and co-founder of "Movie Star Press, and Co-Director of Naropa University's Summer Writing Program), Civil Disobediences: Poetics And Politics In Action offers a series of essays, lectures, and teaching materials contributed by leading contemporary poets and scholars. Within the pages of this unique volume are writings by Alice Notley, Robert Creeley, Samuel R. Delany, and many others, exploring the craft of poetry and the history of poetic/political action both here and abroad. Perhaps one of the most thoughtful and thought-provoking assertions is that "poetry is news that stays news". Civil Disobediences is strongly recommended to the attention of anyone who appreciates informed and informative discourse that has as its parameters the politics of poetry and the poetry of politics. ... Read more

Book Description
In her latest collection of poems, internationally renowned poet Anne Waldman examines our most misunderstood institution-marriage.

Anne Waldman's new collection is a set of high-spirited poetic meditations on the delights and pitfalls of marriage in all its guises--traditional marriages, same sex marriages, the nuclear couple in the contemporary context. Marriage: A Sentence weaves together folklore, autobiographical detail, a meditation on the first five days of the marriage of famed modernist dancer Nijinsky, memory, dream, politics, and the play between opposites and dualities. The work is based on the traditional form of the "haibun," in which a prose-like poem is coupled with a condensed lyric poem of the same theme. The overall drive in this innovative work is an impulse to restore and maintain the spiritual life of marriage in all its diverse manifestations. Lyrical and "berserk," this is Waldman's most exciting, energetic, and accessible work yet.

"Combination of oracle, siren and den mother, Waldman's poetry is a compendium of dreams, journal entries, letters, chants and overheard conversations, it deploys everything from sonnets to chunks of Buddhist philosophy seized as pure truth."-- Ken Tucker, The New York Times Book Review ... Read more

Book Description
This digital document, covering the life and work of Anne (Lesley) Waldman, is an entry from Contemporary Authors, a reference volume published by Thompson Gale. The length of the entry is 3759 words. The page length listed above is based on a typical 300-word page. Although the exact content of each entry from this volume can vary, typical entries include the following information:

• Place and date of birth and death (if deceased)
• Family members
• Education
• Professional associations and honors
• Employment
• Writings, including books and periodicals
• A description of the author's work
• References to further readings about the author