Internationally recognised and acclaimed poet Anne Waldman is 74 years young today. A prominent figure in the beat poetry generation. She has been an active member of the 'Outrider' experimental poetry community, a culture she has helped create and nurture for over four decades as writer, editor, teacher, performer, feminist magpie scholar, infrastructure curator, and cultural/ political activist of immense passion.
Born in Millville, New Jersey, Waldman only lived in New Jersey very briefly She grew up on Macdougal Street in the heart of Greenwich Village where she still lives, on Beat Poetry and jazz, influences that have strongly persisted in her work, along with the second generation of the New York School. Her practice of Tibetan Buddhism has also deeply influenced her work.
The Late Allen Ginsberg, with whom she co-founded the Jack Kerouac School of Diembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado, called her his 'spiritual wife.'
In 1976, Waldman and Ginsberg were featured in Bob Dylan's film, Renaldo and Clara. They worked on the film while traveling through New England and Canada with the Rolling Thunder Revue, a concert tour that made impromptu stops, entertaining enthusiastic crowds with poetry and music. Waldman, Ginsberg, and Dylan were joined on these caravans by musicians such as Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, Eric Anderson, and Joe Cocker. Waldman reveled in the experience, and she often thought of recreating the poetry caravan.
Waldman married Reed Bye in 1980, and their son, Edwin Ambrose Bye was born on October 21, 1980. The birth of her son proved to be an "inspiring turning point" for Waldman, and she became interested in and committed to the survival of the planet. Her child, she said, became her teacher. Waldman and Ambrose Bye perform frequently, and the two have created Fast Speaking Music and have produced multiple albums together.
For nearly half a century she has channelled her passions and experiences into poetry, urging us toward civic and political responsibility, long has she been committed to the survival of the planet, working actively for social change, and was arrested in the 1970s with Daniel Ellsberg & Allen Ginsberg protesting the site of Rocky Flats which was bringing plutonium onto property 10 miles from Boulder for the manufacture of “triggers” for nuclear warheads. She has been a vocal proponent for feminist, environmental, and human rights causes; an active participant in Poets Against the War; and she has helped organize protests in New York and Washington, D.C.
She is recipient of the Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America and is the author of over 40 books of poetry. She is also editor of The Beat Book (Shambhala Publications) and co-editor of The Angel Hair Anthology (Granary Books), Civil Disobediences: Poetics and Politics in Action (Coffee House) and Beats at Naropa (Coffee House, 2009), with previously unpublished work by Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Diane diPrima, Joanne Kyger and William Burroughs, among others.
Her latest book that came out last year was Trickster Feminism an edgy, visionary collection that meditates on gender, existence, passion and activism, uniting feminist history, Buddhist lore, contemporary politics, quantum physics, and more in a text of protest and upheaval.
She sees her poetry performances as 'a ritualised event in time'. She is conceptual, visionary, prophetic, and living icon for future generations, carrying on the Beat tradition. Long may she continue to inspire, hold on to her premise of imaginative consciousness, remaining vibrant and unpredictable.Her powerful genuine poetry to be felt. Happy birthday Anne Waldman.
Fossil Fuel - Anne Waldman and Ambrose Bye
The Lie
Art begins with a lie
The seperation is you plus me plus what we make
Look intolightbulb blink, sun's in your eye
I want a rare sky
vantage point free from misconception
Art begins with a lie
Nothing to lose, spontaneous rise
of reflection, paint the picture
of a lightbulb, or eye the sun
How to fuel the world, then die
Distance yourself from artfulness
How? Art begins with a lie
The audience wants to cry
when the actors are real & passionate
Look into footlight, then feed back to eye
You fluctuate in an artful body
You try to imitate the world's glory
Art begins with a lie
That's the story, sharp speck in the eye.
From: Helping the Dreamer:Selected Poems, 1966-1988
Holy 21st Century
Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!
Holy! Holy! Holy!
Is the composite world holy? Holy phonemes holy neurons!
Holy the 5 senses! Holy the aggregates of being!
Holy impermanence! Holy the inter-connectedness of all beings!
Karma of atrocities holy and un-holy!
Is 21st century endless continuation of 20th century war holy?
Environmental degradation continuation
Of 20th century environmental degradation holy?
Every Woman’s a holy dakini! Matriot acts holy!
Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!
Holy! Holy! Holy!
Body parts blown over the charnel ground holy!
Eyes ears nose hands mouth holy!
Manipulated Bible holy? Koran holy? Anarchist tracts holy? Fatwas holy?
Geneva Convention holy? Holy Contract with America,
come on citizens, is that holy?
Star Wars’ “Rods from Hod” holy? Daisy cutters holy?
Thermobaric version of the Hellfire Missile that can turn corners
and blast into caves holy?
Allen’s Ginsberg’s “Mysterious rivers of tears under the sheets” holy!
Holy Kerouac’s “tender reward!”
Holy Baghdad! Holy Dharamsala! Holy Columbine!
Holy Kabul! Holy Israel/Palestine! Holy Bosnia! Holy Rwanda!
Holy Manahatta Isle! Holy Trade Center! Holy East Timor!
Holy Justice! Holy forgiveness! Holy Truth! Holy Accountability!
Baghram holy? Guantánamo holy? Abu Ghraib unholy!
All hooded torture un-holy! All bodily sadistic harm un-holy!
All the hate un-holy! Big lies unholy! All the rape un-holy!
Unholy! Unholy! Unholy! Unholy! Unholy! Unholy!
Holy rap! Holy hip hop! Holy klezmer! Holy Afro-pop!
Holy jazz! Holy gamelan!
Holy pneumatic drills boring into the depths of Brooklyn!
Holy old slave graves!
False the military recruitment centers
Knocking on tenement doors get a fresh martyr for!
Holy Creeley! Holy Lucia Berlin! Holy Jackson MacLow!
Holy Brakhage! Holy Carl Rakosi! Holy Philip Lamantia!
Holy Steve Lacy, blowing his saxophone in heaven!
Cloning holy? Stem cells holy?
Amphetamine holy? Un-holy the polarized universe!
Holy the unfettered Universe!
Holy Negative Capability! Holy No Ideas But In Things!
Holy Projective Verse! Holy Modal Structures!
Banish grief & greed
o compassionate green-skinned savioress of the Mind
HOLY OM TARA HOLY TUTTH TARA HOLY TURE SOHA
Anne Waldman - Battery
Here she reads her poem "Battery" as part of Dear Poet, the Academy of American Poets educational project for National Poetry Month 2017
Anne Waldman - Reading from Manatee/Humanity
Anne Waldman: Poetry in Performance
Join her here and listen to some of here shamanic and subversive poems
at a reading at Eastern Illinois University 2009.
