The expansive, countercultural, and wildly prolific life of celebrated poet Anne Waldman, in her own words.
In Bard, Kinetic, Anne Waldman assembles a layered compendium of essays, letters, poems, and interviews that form a panoramic portrait of life and praxis as a groundbreaking poet. Waldman charts her journey through a maelstrom of radical artistic activity, from growing up in Greenwich Village, to her creative partnership with Allen Ginsberg and touring with Bob Dylan. She recalls founding the Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church and later the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University and discusses the political and artistic philosophy that guides her activities as writer, activist, performer, instigator, and Buddhist practitioner. Throughout Bard, Kinetic, Waldman pays homage to friends and collaborators, many of whom are no longer with us, including Amiri Baraka, Lou Reed, John Ashbery, and Diane di Prima. Waldman's experiences serve as a guide for others committed to making the world a more conscious and conscientious place that soars with poetry.
About the Author: Anne Waldman is the author of numerous volumes of poetry, including the feminist epic The Iovis Trilogy: Colors in The Mechanism of Concealment, which won the Pen Center USA Award for Poetry in 2012. Other recent books include Manatee/Humanity, Gossamurmur, Jaguar Harmonics, and the anthology Cross Worlds: Transcultural Poetics (Coffee House Press 2014, coedited with Laura Wright). She is a recipient of the Shelley Memorial Award and the Guggenheim Fellowship, and is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. She has been at the forefront of cultural activism, and is one of the founders of the Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church and a cofounder with Allen Ginsberg of the celebrated Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University, the first Buddhist-inspired university in the west. Her work has been published in translation in many languages, most recently French and Finnish.
