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A fascinating new work from an internationally renowned poet

Anne Waldman’s new investigative hybrid-poem explores the nuances of inter-species communication and compassion. It draws on animal lore, animal encounters (with grey wolf and manatee), dreams, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, and Buddhist ritual to render a text of remarkable sympathy, reciprocity, and power. The poem asks questions as well as urges further engagement with the endangered (including our human selves). Part performance litany, part survival kit, part worried mammalian soundings, Waldman explores, as ever, what it means to inhabit our condition through language and imagination inside a wheel of time. This is the mature work of a philosophical field poet with a shamanic metabolism. ... Read more

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An intriguing work of verse, sure to make many a reader ponder their roots
They share the earth with us, but do we truly understand them? "Manatee/Humanity" is a collection of poetry from Anne Waldman, who presents a collection of poetry focusing on the relationships that mankind has with the animal kingdom. Drawing inspiration from evolution, animal empathy, and all things that link humans with the rest of their animal brethren, "Manatee/Humanity" is an intriguing work of verse, sure to make many a reader ponder their roots. ... Read more

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The Beat movement exploded into American culture in the early 1950s with the force of prophecy. Not just another literary school, it was an artistic and social revolution. William S. Burroughs proclaimed that the Beat writers were “real architects of change. There is no doubt that we’re living in a freer America as a result of the Beat literary movement, which is an important part of the larger picture of cultural and political change in this country during the last forty years, when a four-letter word couldn’t appear on the printed page and minority rights were ridiculous.”

Anne Waldman, a renowned poet and longtime friend of many of these writers, has gathered in this volume a range of the best and most exemplary writings of the Beat poets and novelists. Selections from the Beat classics appear, as well as more recent prose and poetry demonstrating the continued vitality of the Beat experiment. Included are short biographies of the contributors, an extensive bibliography of Beat literature, and a unique guide to “Beat places” around the world—from Kerouac’s hometown of Lowell, Massachusetts, where his novel Dr. Sax takes place, to Tangier, where Burroughs wrote parts of Naked Lunch. ... Read more

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Everything Beat
If you are looking for a book that gives you the highlights, the best, of the Beats, along with background information, this is the book for you.Ginsberg wrote the forward, Waldman edited. All the writers are here.Enjoy. ... Read more

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A stimulating mix of autobiography, interviews, essays on poetics, Buddhism, Naropa, politics, and more, this book reveals a life possessed by the muse. You've seen the "safe" versions, now listen to some straight talk from an inveterate hipster in this unconventional, irreverent, transgressive "how-to" book about writing:"I've always been on the track of a wizened hag's voice, the tough tongue of the crone free of vanity and conditioning. She's terrifying, liberating at the same instant. She's exhausted her hope and fear." A book about the artistic process-without the twelve steps. ... Read more

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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 Beat and 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."

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, 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 many more.

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Full, Emphatic Recommendation
This collection of works written mostly by poets is inspirational for any kind of writer, artist, activist, concerned citizen, etc...

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

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Hungry to explore Zen and make the discoveries that would shape a lifetime of poetry, Joanne Kyger left for Japan in her twenties and returned four years later ready to carve out a substantial niche in San Francisco's Beat poetry movement. Whether studying under Zen teacher Ruth Fuller Sakaki or meeting with the Dalai Lama (who at 27 "lounged on a velvet couch like a gawky adolescent in red robes"), her journals are witty, amusing, and intelligent, in this fascinating look at the art of poetry and portrait of the counterculture abroad. ... Read more

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Sei Shonagon updated
This book reminds me of Sei Shonagon, but the cast of characters is often well-known Beat writers.Kyger was married to Beat saint Gary Snyder at the time, but she is iconoclastic in regards to presenting him here.The arc of the book is their love story -- beginning with a shy and rather impressed Kyger and ending with a rather loud and irreverent Kyger.Early on she worships Snyder, but then he knocks her down and splits her head open on a wood table when she refuses to do the dishes.He is surly throughout the book, and given to bad moods, and kicks her at least twice.

Kyger gets it all down.

Beat saint Allen Ginsberg grabs his food at the communal dining hour and shoves his face full without waiting for others to be served.Orlovsky is shoving drugs in his face every moment that he can.

This is a funny book that knocks out stereotypes left and right.In one or two sentences she undoes the career of Paul Blackburn, for instance.And all the while she is musing on the possibility of a female literature, and what it might consist of -- something for which she had no clear legacy in American but the Japanese writers of the Heian period such as Sei Shonagon appear to have given her the inspiration needed.

This is a very good book for those who are tired of the Beats self-sanctification, and want a bit of humorous and unsparing insight into their world. ... Read more

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Poetry. "Anne Waldman glows even in the throes of morning sickness at the Buddhist chateau. The mind empties as the belly expands, but the mind doesn't clear without a detailed expression of what it is letting go of, and the body doesn't fill without a rich chronicle of sensation. She takes us all the way to term and then, the baby gets the pantoums. What a retreat she takes us on. What a euphonic spell of sleep-deprived wonder she casts"--C.D. Wright. "With her warm subtle fleshy FIRST BABY POEMS Waldman creates an infant power that did not exist before in her words. These poems are complex joyful bioalchemy"--Michael McClure. ... Read more

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"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 Waldman’s voice lift them off the page is transcendent.

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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

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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

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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

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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'" ... Read more

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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

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